


Redamancy

by Wanderlust3988



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-03-28 22:09:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 27,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13913184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderlust3988/pseuds/Wanderlust3988
Summary: A series of Drabble chapters with no real connecting plot on Seto and Reader parenting.





	1. His

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! I know a couple of you saw this coming and said it would be something worth reading/posting so here it is. That being said, I don’t know how long I’ll keep this up but here goes!
> 
> My other fic, Only Boys in Books are Perfect will take quite a while to get to the point of them being parents so I wrote this separate, Drabble fic. You don’t have to have read that one for this to make sense, so I may not add this to the series but some references may go over your head. This may not even be how many kids the Seto/Reader in that universe have, but as of right now, that’s what we are working with. 
> 
> I promise there is no angst here, just domestic fluff. The chapters may be unrelated to each other and just outline how they go about day to day as a family.
> 
> Once this is out of my system, I may quite well delete this because quite frankly it gave me a tooth ache writing, but let me know if you like it :)

  
Her indicolite eyes met yours and only tears would seep into crinkling cheeks flushed cherry. Miniature fingers clung on to the laced neckline of your nightie, and she writhe, ripping cry after tortured cry from her throat.

“Please stop crying and be a good girl for mummy,” you cooed, hoping to convince the three month old to feed. “How are you only good when daddy holds you?

“Shh...shh...You can go back to him after you’re not hungry anymore...I promise.”

With a careful hand you stroked her tiny head sprinkled sparsely with russet hair; the hand you had intended to caress over her back suspending against her damp crown. Panic set in.

With eyes flaming with mild terror you roused your husband caught in some permanent state between sleep and reality. You found him often in such a state these nights. He always held her at night while you slept, especially following the recent complications to your condition. His warmth seemed to calm her; something she’d inherited from her mother, Seto would often say.

“Seto. Seto wake up.” You shook him until hazy blue flared open to flicker against the ceiling. “Seto she’s burning up!” you said, hand pressed against her dampened forehead. You yourself were on the verge of tears.

Pressing the back of his hand against her neck, he shot out of bed.

“Calm down,” Seto scolded, snatching the crying infant into his arms, “it’s not like the twins have never come down with a fever.”

He almost tripped over the ginger and ivory tabbies forming a twisted croissant by the foot of the bed as he navigated the dim room for the walk-in closet. Cursing, he faltered, before reconstructing his composure perfectly, despite his severe state of sleep deprivation.

“Not this young... She — she won’t stop crying and I — I didn’t take her outside and she’s only feeding on —”

“Babies get sick, they have weak immune systems, stop acting like this is our first child,” he chided, emerging from the closet, slipping on a navy duster; the baby he had swaddled in pink cradled against one arm. “You’re going to give yourself a miscarriage.”

“Can words like that still come out of your mouth after two miscarriages?”

“It wasn’t intended to be harsh,” he said. “Put on a coat if you’re coming or go back to bed. I’ll be back before morning.”

“Like hell I’m going back to bed.” You pushed past him into the closet. “Should we tell the girls we are going to the hospital?”

“There’s no sense in waking up a pair of irritable toddlers who won’t understand what you’re saying,” your husband said following after you. “I’ll have the maids look after them. I can only deal with so many tantrums at a time. I only have two hands, and as you can see,” he said motioning to you, “they’re both pretty full right now.”

“Are you saying I’m a handful?”

“I’m saying the baby is easier to deal with than you,” he remarked, appraising your attire as you turned to him. Draping the cashmere scarf he stripped off a nearby hanger around your neck, with one hand he pulled on the hood of your cream cardigan.

“It’s thirty degrees outside,” you protested.

“The night air is cold.”

Halfway down the staircase he turned allowing you to catch up; even two steps above him Seto still matched your height. Drawing you forward with a firm grip wrapping your upper arm, he pressed his lips against your forehead. “She’s going to be fine,” he said, his voice embracing you warmly.

…

“How long has she had the fever?” the doctor asked, shining a narrow light into the eyes of the flailing infant; deep blue, like your husband’s.

“A couple of hours,” you replied in a tremulous voice, standing over the examination bed.

“She threw up milk before bed, and woke up in the middle of the night crying,” Seto added in an even voice. “She wakes up often in the middle of the night, we thought nothing of it.”

A few more moments were spent in silence while the doctor placed his stethoscope over her back and chest. He muttered his diagnosis. In your state of consternation, you only caught the “she will be fine, it’s nothing serious,” amongst his medical ramblings.

Your husband was following along you knew, and so both you and the baby were going to be fine.

…

Seto watched you as you poured over the sleeping infant in the bedroom you shared, consternation thick over your features. If someone asked the young chairman how many children he had, he would say four, with the fifth on the way; the first he would count would be you, his wife who he had realized quite early in the marriage, had not quite grown up past the age of — on a good day — three years old. He often wondered how you managed a conglomerate with an iron fist.

 


	2. The Nutella Incident

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ended up being longer than I wanted it to be for a Drabble series, but here it is. Seto dealing with his daughters...and the cats, alone for the most part.

Seto had only left the kitchen for a minute, to take a call in the other room. His youngest was sick again and you had left.

“I don’t care how grim the divorce is looking, I don’t pay you to waste my time with excuses.” The young chairman grimaced at the flustered man bleating on about him potentially losing child custody. The infant he had left in the kitchen was now wailing; Seto could hear the twins’ subdued snickers. An ominous feeling stirred in his gut. “One more excuse and you’re about to find yourself short of a job, too. Have the separation contract in my inbox within the hour...Hmm...I see...I had hoped for this to end amicably, not that I care about severing ties like this. She’s a tenacious woman, don’t be fooled by the BS her company feeds the media.”

Pocketing his phone, he marched into the kitchen, blue eyes immediately honing in on the baby he had left strapped in the safety seat after the early morning trip to the hospital, in the summer storm ravaging the city; now covered in — by the smell of it — jelly and Nutella. The culprit — one half of the twins — leaned over the seat on the kitchen counter, the evidence of her crime painting one palm cherry and the other chocolate.

“Master Kaiba,” one maid squealed as all three he had left on guard fell to panicked bows, “I — we — we swear we only took our eyes off of her for a moment!”

Seto closed his eyes, seven in the morning was too early to be defeated by a migraine.

“Where’s your sister?” Seto asked calmly, though nothing about his expression agreed with his tone.

The toddler with a mirthful giggle, pointed out the open glass door he had not until that moment noticed had been left open; bringing the rain in.

You were going to _murder_ him.

Breaking off into a mad dash out the kitchen door, only in some far recess of his mind did it register to sue the maids for wilful negligence.

She was thoroughly soaked, her smocked, cherry petal pinafore clinging to her skin the same way her dark hair did, as if twisted mouse tails.

He called out to her in a pitched voice, demanding what she was doing out sitting in a puddle in the middle of a monsoon storm, with two palms well spread with breakfast ingredients.

“Dadda!” the toddler squeaked in English, throwing up her hands at his approach. The choice words which had assembled in no sensible order dispersed and forgotten at her melting smile. Only a low growl would come as he swaddled her in his suit jacket, lifting her into his arms.

“You’re the reason I haven’t gone into work in two days,” he said, bringing her under the shelter of the kitchen. “And probably the reason I won’t be going to work for the next three days.” He felt her forehead for the fever which would surely follow. “Why doesn’t any of you realize I have a company to run?”

His newborn — if a three month old could still be called that — continued her campaign for his attention; screaming until she was so red in the face her cheeks looked as if they would just burst. So with one twin in his arm, he scooped the inconsolable infant into his other, uncaring for how jam and Nutella were smearing all over his white dress shirt.

“You stay right there,” he told the third with eyes narrowed in warning. As young as she was, she understood that look. “I’m coming back for you.” Under the doorway of the kitchen he stopped, looking over his shoulder to find his own eyes looking back at him, except with much, much more untamed enthusiasm. It was striking how they were all carbon copies of your sensibilities wrapped up in his looks. “Please don’t break anything, or yourself,” Seto bargained with the cackling toddler.

“I don’t need to answer to your mother again,” he said to himself under his breath. “I’ve done that enough this week.”

He didn’t know why he needed to, your knee-jerk reaction was to panic and throw the baby at him for a solution...for anything.

…

Standing over the sink of the master bedroom in a chocolate stained dress shirt as he dried the now pacified and flailing infant with a plush towel, he could hear the water sloshing over the edge of the bathtub and flooding the floor behind him.

The twins had decided to explore the bathroom on all fours while he bathed their sister, leaving tracks of Nutella and raspberry jam all over the floor tiles, walls and each other. Seto was sure he had seen the over pampered raccoon you had named after him prowling around with half a coat of thick chocolate, somewhere under the towel cabinets. He would not wash that entitled weasel no matter how much you cried about it; he sacrificed enough for that cat, mostly his headspace on his pillow at night. He could only hope it wouldn’t go rub against that other orange fur-ball- _thing_  that you raised — if his kids hadn’t already found it and accomplished that themselves. 

Just as he had finished securing the nappy he had been fumbling with, the infant decided to inform him of her hunger pangs which she insisted required immediate attention.

Seto looked down at her with knowing eyes and an expression of defeat. “You’re not going to drink the formula, are you?”

She apparently found this expression hilarious.

He would buy you a pump the next time, and make you leave rations.

…

Seto woke up to some odd hour of the night with his head settled between the railings of his eldest daughter’s cot, a storybook in hand; The Minpins.

The purpose of reading stories to a couple of fifteen month olds eluded him, but you had insisted — not that you were around to see him following through. They had no idea what he was saying half the time, stringing together scraps of English and Japanese when they needed something.

He found your choice of storybooks odd, though in your state, if he made a remark of it, you would probably dissolve into tears. Seto looked over to the pastel-pink bookcase housing the hardbound book about princesses and dragons he had bought. The twins had possessed no patience or interest for it, opting to jump up and down in their cribs for the duration of the read. Perhaps when they were older, he reasoned, they would grow an appreciation for dragons.

…

“Yes, I know you’re upset,” you heard Seto say in a sour drawl, “but I’m not the person you should be upset with. When your mother comes home, you can be as petulant as you want with her, but she’s too busy working, so you get me this week...and every other week.”

A smile gripping your whole face, you stole a peek through the bedroom door; your husband sat against the headboard of his side of the bed, coercing the irritable baby nestled in his arms to take her bottle. At the foot of the bed, his laptop whirred silently, forgotten.

You entered with light steps, so as to not stir your newborn.

“Your food’s here,” Seto blandly told the infant, heavy eyes lifting with some trace of gratitude to greet yours.

“I heard you put the twins to sleep,” you said, sauntering over to the bed.

He grunted, setting the untouched bottle on the nightstand.

“And I heard Suki was walking around with chocolate in her fur.” You noticed she was presently assuming the curl of a well-rolled roulade on one of your husband’s pillows, her fur clean and dry though discernibly unbrushed

“Don’t.”

Pacing around the bed to his side, his scowl grew deeper. “Did you enjoy your vacation?”

“I was promoting for Chanel and shooting a drama. It wasn’t a vacation.”

“Did you have two toddlers and a sick newborn crying your ear off in Nice or Paris? And a nation of imbeciles dubbing themselves the free press attempting to destroy your image over a partnership dissolution with a corporation run by demented nut jobs?”

You sat facing Seto on the edge of the bed, glancing at the infant grabbing a fistful of her father’s shirt as she thrashed in his arms. You wanted to hold her but your husband looked as if he was more in need of your attention. Though more so, after thirteen hours of sharing with hundreds of strangers a flying metal can, you didn’t want to risk touching your baby.

“She’s not hungry,” you observed, “she’s just irritable.”

“She’s sick,” your husband said, annoyed. “For two days now. Where have you been? You were supposed to be here hours ago. I had Isono wait eight hours at the airport.”

“Sorry, after the show there was a press conference, and then an after party. I ended up missing two flights.”

“You’re five weeks pregnant,” Seto reminded you, “you better not have consumed alcohol.”

“Of course I didn’t.”

“This is why I told you to take the jet.”

“That’s just a waste when I’m flying alone. Besides, I’m here now,” you said leaning in, voice a low purr. Your hand sought his inner thigh, giving him a gentle squeeze.

“I can see that. Go get ready for bed so I can leave her with you and get some work done in the study.”

You stood, though with no intention of going anywhere. As you drew nearer, leaning into him, he settled the infant beside him, away from your touch.

“What are you doing?” Seto questioned, voice all but a growl. He knew better than to trust that playful smile.

Biting your lip, you let the leather jacket slip to the floor. “Can’t work wait? We haven’t seen each other in a week.” With a careless flick you allowed one strap of your slip to fall, baring your shoulder.

“What are you doing in front of her?” he hissed.

It was your turn to grab a fistful of his shirt as you leaned into your husband’s ear. “She won’t remember this and I didn’t mean right here. Have her nanny look after her for an hour and I’ll let you get back to work for the rest of the week.”

“What exactly are you bribing me with?” Seto asked.

“That depends on what you want.”

“You know _exactly_ what I want,” Seto said, possessing every intention of taking you up on the offer, in the bathtub. “And I want more than an hour for it.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! :)


	3. “We Made This”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying this short fic series. Let me know if you have any requests/ suggestions!

Flailing fervently, possessed by mysterious enthusiasm as babies often were, cradled between you and Seto, your youngest was for once — or at least what felt like it — in a pleasant mood. Caressing her crown with your thumb, her whole head fit under the palm of your hand. You were surrounding her as you laid beside her on the bed.

To her left, Seto sat against the headboard on his side of the bed, typing furiously some report; the newborn’s chirps falling on deaf ears, thoroughly engrossed.

Irritated by the lack of attention he afforded you and the baby, you pulled on his shirt sleeve. “Seto,” you called him, “it’s almost ten, could you give it a rest? It’s Saturday.”

Grappling away his wrist, he pulled the comforter higher up over you without sparing a glance. “What do you need?”

“You.”

“I’m sitting here instead of in my study because you said the same thing three hours ago.”

You let out a disgruntled whine. “Pay attention to us!”

He sighed, but made no further motion to acknowledge your petulance, shaking his head. Narrowing his eyes and retracing them over the words he had just typed, he whetted his concentration. He would never admit it to you, though while he believed himself a master of closing his mind to all surrounding distractions, you were always the exception. Though in some corner of his mind he reasoned, perhaps...perhaps you already knew.

“She’s in a good mood for once,” you said pouting as if you yourself were a child, “and you’re not even paying attention. So much for wanting a family.”

“She’s in a good mood because you’re here and she didn’t have to put up with me forcing her to drink formula.” As for your second complaint, he wouldn’t dignify the accusation by addressing it.

“Seto...” you continued your bid for affection, rolling out his name in an irritable whine. “We miss you.”

“I’m sitting right here.”

“I’m going to file for a divorce,” you told him.

His fingers stopped, suspended over the keys. “That’s the postpartum depression and the pregnancy hormones talking. Besides, that would accomplish the opposite of what you’re trying to do right now.”

“How do you mean?”

“You attach yourself at the hip to me at every opportunity, here and when we meet for work. If we’re separated, you would see me even less than you do now.”

That inspired tears. In all honesty, he should have seen that coming. He hadn’t been unnecessarily harsh, though at this point, he could not begin to fathom what triggered you anymore.

“What is it now?” Seto asked, distracting from his laptop and stroking your hair. The exasperation was evident.

“The thought of being separated from you is so...sad...and I don’t know what I would — what I would do with myself.”

Seto sighed, the exhale lasting longer this time as he mentally reset the likely scathing, default response which would have otherwise left him. “You suggested it. I would never even entertain such a ridiculous thing. We are not actually getting a divorce so stop crying.”

“It’s just so sad,” you sobbed.

That was it. He could feel his productivity coming to a screeching halt, so he conceded. The laptop found itself discarded on the nightstand for the evening.

“Come here,” Seto husked, moving to hold you both in his arms as he laid against his own pillow — vacant of the felines to his surprise. He soothed you with his lips against your hairline, hushing you.

Having dried your tears with his thumb, Seto rested his palm gently over his newborn. She wasted no time in seizing her father’s pinky finger with both hands, her mirthful giggles inspiring your own again.

“We made this!” you told Seto in an enthusiastic whisper as he curved over you, pulling you and the baby closer. “You and me.”

He allowed a rare smile, indicolite peering into indicolite as he met his daughter’s curious gaze. “We did,” he said, endeared by your innocence.

“I did good right? She looks exactly like you,” you said. “I told you she would.”

Seto released a deep hum, kissing the top of your head. “...You did,” he said against your hair, breathing in the scent he had memorized years ago. He didn’t know when it had become the scent of coming home.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think :)


	4. Early Mornings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PandaMuse, I realized randomly in the middle of the day what you meant by you were nervous by where the last chapter left off. I hope this clears things up on what Seto was talking about with his directors two chapters ago. 
> 
> This does get a little dark some ways through but it doesn’t last. Enjoy :)
> 
> Let me know what you think :)

Early summer and the sheets were starting to get too heavy. You woke up sometime past two in the morning, your face pressed against his underarm; nightgown damp all over. He stirred as you did, brilliant blue flickering to look over you.

Your baby curled on his chest beside your head was fast asleep, tiny fingers grasping her father’s shirt.

“You’re on my side of the bed. When did she — when did she wake up?” you asked Seto, the last your remember tucking her in under the covers of the crib across the room.

“About an hour ago,” Seto spoke in a whisper. “You sleep like the dead, I’m not surprised I didn’t wake you up. Besides, you’re the one who decided to move there.”

You smiled lightly at the irritation your husband’s voice carried. “Thank you,” you said, “for being a good father to her. To all of them.”

“You talk like they’re not mine,” he groused.

“No, I just meant...thank you, I guess.”

“Why are you awake?” Seto knitted his brows.

“I keep telling you, not everyone wakes up at will the way you do.” He released a pensive hum, darting his gaze up to the ceiling. You sighed. “I’m going to miss sleeping like this on you. Or sleeping at all.”

Your previous pregnancies had been particularly awful, without discrimination for the trimester, and those around you questioned why you willfully subjected yourself to a third in spite of it.

This child, you would say as a joke was a blessing, and with the exception of the truly devastating nausea at the oddest time of the day, she — you were convinced — was. At least you weren’t surviving on watercress salad, bread and lemonade — though rice was again not allowed on the dining table. It was fortunate Seto didn’t care for the staple.

Seto made no comment to acknowledge your remarks. You understood he wasn’t a proponent of your decision. He had always been fearful for your health, remnants of his sentiments for how he parted with his mother, now only heightened by your last delivery.

“Go back to sleep,” he eventually said, muttering how he still had a few good hours of sleep left before work. He observed how his words never quite reached you, though your eyes had never left his. “What is it?”

“I’m scared,” you admitted. “I’m scared that this time I won’t make it...that this time I’ll leave you to raise them alone.”

Again he wouldn’t speak. He knew of your resolution.

“Where would you go?” he husked, appearing nonchalant though he held you tighter. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re healthier this time than you’ve ever been. Stop talking nonsense at ungodly hours of the morning and go to sleep. You’re worse than the children.”

  
“Seto...” Your fingers curled against his shirt, as if to cling closer to him.

“Hmm?”

“Thank you. I needed to hear that.”

He grunted again. He had been expecting tears.

“I love you.”

“Please get some sleep,” he groaned, only allowing a small smile once your eyes were tightly closed against him.

…

You woke up alone with your youngest swaddled against you.

In the distance you could hear the running water of a tap, the low drone of your husband’s voice, and giggles bubbling with mischief ignoring him. The twins were up, you understood.

It was infinitely more entertaining than watching idols, the frustration your daughters inflicted upon your husband when they defied his orders which to everyone else had been absolute — especially so early in the morning. He always said it reminded him of you.

“No,” you could hear Seto berating your eldest. “Don’t put that in your mouth.”

You peeked through the wide-open bathroom door to see your second daughter propped on the sink against him; Seto caught in a troubling place between preventing the eldest from stuffing the bath loofah into her mouth, and brushing the younger’s teeth.

You watched in the midst of his distraction as the teething toddler bit down on her father’s finger, presently enclosed by her silicone toothbrush.

Seto recoiled, suppressing a groan of pain, when he caught your eye.

“Our child is putting a bath loofah in her mouth are you just going to let her do it?”

“Relax,” you told your husband, leaning away from where you had been against the doorframe. “She does it all the time. I have the maids disinfect it. Besides they need the resistance to their immune system.”

Seto growled your name, demanding you go separate her from the loofah, and with languid strides, you obeyed him in a manner which was so defiant in your reluctance that it only stood to aggravate him more, though as always, only for an instance.

“Momma...nooo,” the toddler howled as you grappled away her beloved loofah. Her cries unrelenting as you lifted her against you, bringing her to your husband to join her younger sister.

“Your daddy says no,” you said, guiltlessly throwing your husband under the bus. “He’s the mean one.”

“Real mature,” Seto groused. “I already brushed her teeth,” he added as you reached for the toothpaste.

Setting down the tube of honey flavoured toothpaste, you reserved yourself to watching him, resting with the toddler against the sink. “I saw the separation paperwork in my inbox,” you spoke in a solemn tone. “Do we really have to?”

“Do you want to stay in a partnership with a nutjob?” Seto asked without distracting his ministrations. “Say ah for me,” he coerced the toddler, bending over her. She was more intent on chomping down on the bristles and by extension his finger. “Besides,” he then continued, addressing you, “the damage is already done. It’s all over the newspapers. Her corporation breached the contract first. We’re only responding as was agreed on during the initial negotiations.”

“She seemed so nice. I hate that the media is buying all the crap her company is feeding them. I hate that they’re trying to make you look bad.”

“Watch your language around the kids,” Seto chided.

“They’ve had their fun. I’m bringing this farce to an end this week. My media and PR director is a joke.” He removed the hollow brush from his index, reaching for the small cup to rinse her mouth. “He’s about to find out his wife isn’t the only one capable of throwing him out.”

“Poor man, he’s about to lose his children,” you said. “Have mine handle it. Give him paid leave or something. How would you feel if you were in his shoes?”

“I would never be in his shoes,” Seto said, plainly piqued.

“How can you be so sure?”

Seto allowed a cocky smirk as he looked at you, testing the running water as he prepared to wash the toddler’s face. “You’re too obsessed with me.” 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love hearing your thoughts so let me know what you think :)


	5. Rain & Obscure Cravings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the title basically is self-explanatory, and I hope you enjoy! :)

“You know how at our wedding, you kept saying you wouldn’t dance, but you did dance...with me? And I cried?”

The heavy pelting of long icy needles against the summer garden beyond the curtain drawn study had grown to be a calming, all-enveloping drum. Though likely, the comfort was found in a different source.

“I remember the crying,” Seto grumbled, his fingers never missing a key or character on his uninterrupted code.

For a fleeting second, blue eyes glanced surreptitiously at the framed wedding photo propped on his desk; your white dress cascading with layers of tulle occupying the greater part of the picture. Beside you, he looked as serious as a heart attack.

“Seto!” you whined, nuzzling in closer.

He paused for a brief moment, plucking one cat wedged between his keyboard and monitor, and dropping it as if he had touched festering garbage, to the floor. The second feline made the most of the now vacant and warm space, stretching her little tabby paws as far as they could reach.

“Seto don’t drop Suki like that, she could get seriously hurt on the way down,” you chided him.

“They’re cats,” he replied in a grunt, “they always land on their feet. Something I wish you would do.”

“You can’t drop me,” you said, clutching his shirt collar tighter. “I’m pregnant.” You could not squeeze yourself any more perfectly into his lap as he sat typing at his desk, if you had tried.

“That,” Seto said, peering pointedly at the sleeping infant cradled in your arms, “and you’re holding her.”

His tired eyes glanced past his blinding screen, across the lamplit study to see the twins swaddled and sleeping on the far sofas.

“You need to take the kids to bed,” Seto said, returning to his coding. “This isn’t a suitable place for them to fall asleep.”

You lifted your head from his shoulder where you had been tucked out of his field of vision fixed to the screen. “They’re scared of the thunder outside,” you said. “They sleep better when you’re around.”

“Them or you?”

“You always said they take after me. Anyway, like I was saying, the dance at our wedding, I had a dream about it.”

Seto hummed, evidently only half listening.

“You’re not listening,” you accused.

“Of course I am.”

“Then what did I say?”

“You had a dream about our wedding reception.”

“Oh.”

“If you have nothing better to do, and your only objective is to disrupt my work,” Seto said, typing quite crossly, “then fall asleep like the baby.”

This required no coercion; the steady echo of his heartbeat and the therapeutic typing was its own lullaby.

…

When next you woke, nothing had changed; not the drum of his pulse and not his fingers falling rhythmically over a keyboard or the rain. Or maybe...one thing had, your youngest was stirring, and she was grasping at a button on Seto’s shirt.

At first you observed in silence, curious of his reaction. From where you were nestled into his chest, he could not know you were awake.

Without any persuasion beyond the light brush of her hand, his fingers darting across the keyboard came to a standstill. You could not know the expression on his face as he reached down for her exploring fingers, allowing her to wrap them around his ring finger. He held his captured fingers there, in mid air, utterly stolen by the sight of her.

He said nothing, and neither would you, and after a moment longer than you knew how to count, you would find yourself lulled to a soothing slumber.

…  
  
You woke up to the same room, same heartbeat and same rain. No typing, though the table lamp still poured light over the desk. Your infant was fast asleep, and by the much larger hand — still apprehended — resting over her, you assumed your husband was too. Seto’s other hand held you closer; the computer screen dimmed to a blackness.

His breathing had evened. He was definitely a sleep.

This was a problem; you were hungry. Very hungry in fact...and something else. You often find yourself an unfortunate mix of hungry, aroused and nauseous. Admittedly, they did not work together, and for what seemed like years now, Seto was left to be the subject or mediator of all of these impulses, compulsions and on more than just the occasion, violent paroxysms.

“Seto,” you silently cooed.

The slightest whisper of your voice was enough to rouse him, he was conditioned to it by now; a light sleeper by nature.

He offered some incoherent mutter of a response. You assumed from having known the man that you were being berated for subjecting the three of you to this position. It was not comfortable, not anymore.

  
“I’m hungry.” You had eaten two servings of crab mac and cheese for dinner, followed by a few bites of chicken ravioli which had been your undoing.

“I’m not surprised, you threw up everything you ate,” he said.

You were grateful that he had left out the sequel to that episode; you attempting to seduce him right there on the bathroom floor. Attractive.

“What do you want to eat?” he then asked. You could hear the apprehension in his voice; you had made him send out a butler at 1am in the morning to go hunt the city for chicken and waffles three nights ago. Last night, he had driven you around for the better part of two hours, turning the city on its head for a hole-in-the-wall Chinese establishment you had frequented years ago for some soup which had only made you nauseated.

“Would you go get it for me no matter how far?” The smile you wore was reinforcing the unease in Seto’s gut.

“What?” He abstained from gritting his teeth, urging himself to unclench his jaw. He couldn’t handle an emotionally charged episode at — he checked the time ticking on the glass table clock — two-thirty in the morning.

In all seriousness, Seto understood the demands nurturing new life while nursing another infant, placed on your body, and so in spite of his sour attitude, at the drop of your word, he would have sought to procure whatever obscure thing you requested if it meant shaking awake an iron-chef at some ungodly hour of the morning.

“I’m messing with you. That fried egg noodle place probably delivers.”

They did.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always wait to hear what you guys think so do let me know how you think Seto is doing with being a father and how Reader is doing on her side of things :)


	6. The Magnolias at Midnight

The unrelenting shooting sound effects raining over your ears were — for the lack of a more descriptive term — annoying. It was just nerve grating and annoying. Of course, your current seating choice was made at your own discretion though your seat should have been more accommodating of your needs.

You had learnt very quickly that grappling the gaming controller away from him would only make him reset and restart the game, so you had settled for wrapping your legs around his waist as you sat straddling him, face buried against the crook of his shoulder.

He seemed entirely undistracted by this ploy entirely meant to be a distraction.

“Seto,” you groused, words muffled into his dark grey sweater, “the babies are all sleeping on their own for once and this is how you want to spend the night? Testing some stupid video game?”

The aggravating clicking of buttons into the controller did not pause, nor did he seem to possess any thought of acknowledging you.

“I have needs,” you said, carelessly cross.

“And I thought I took care of those needs before coming down to work. Twice at that.”

“Twice at that,” you mimicked his words. “But who’s counting? I didn’t realize we had set regulations over that now.”

He growled your name. “You realize as a man I have limits? It doesn’t change to accommodate your hormone spikes.”

“Fine, but at least come up to bed to cuddle? I’ve missed you.”

“Then you should cut down on the business trips, I haven’t gone anywhere.” His words held reason; at just over three months, your pregnancy was beginning to show. And Seto’s nagging grew longer everyday.

As your hold on him grew into a death grip, he abandoned the controller over the coffee table. He motioned to stand, keeping you as you were, when you suggested settling back into the couch. “We could watch a movie,” you suggested, hopeful though entirely wishful thinking, “and you could hold me?”

He agreed, almost effortlessly — his silent reasoning, you would fall asleep within minutes of the opening credits and he could return to work or at the very least be relieved of the household’s last disgruntled toddler for the night.

Things were for once in this house playing in his favour, as the events turned exactly according to his predictions.

Entering the bedroom, your sleeping form nestled into his arms, he navigated with careful steps around the sleeping infant’s crib. If she and all his daughters had inherited one idiosyncrasy of his — besides their violent tempers which could also be attributed to you, their mother — it had been how lightly they slept.

Making a mental note for home relieved he was that she was sound asleep, he had only taken a step past her, when his turned back met her piping wails.

Steadying himself with a deep breath he laid you in bed, pulling the covers over. His lips met your hairline before leaning away.

Seto Kaiba did not know how he would handle the arrival of a fourth child, though this was of course if he managed to survive another ridiculously extravagant round of baby showers, gender reveal parties and first birthdays you roped him into enduring.

If anyone was ecstatic for these events when they had no place to be, it was his board directors.

Leaning into the crib he lifted his crying daughter into his arms, cradling her as if she would shatter.

“I know you’re not hungry,” Seto said in a quiet voice, rocking her lightly. He hushed her soothingly. “Don’t wake your mother up, it wasn’t easy to get her to sleep.”

At the cries refusing to cease, he sorted through the build-in crib drawers for an extra blanket to swaddle her in, before taking her out to the balcony.

Opening the French doors, he let the air scented with magnolia petals to flood the room, the breeze a welcome refresher from the fever his baby had worked him up to. He settled himself into one of the chairs, finding some semblance of peace in the summer air. He could feel his nose begin to grow cold. It was an odd sensation to notice, he thought to himself.

He would not dispute the felines curling by his feet.

Against the magnolia breeze and the hum of the wind, his infant seemed to calm; the climbing English rose petals he had grown for you all over the East wing of he mansion walls, delivering themselves onto the balcony in a flutter each time to wind stirred the old oaks and maples.

“I grew those flowers for your mother,” Seto found himself admitting; something he had never said explicitly said, though he hoped you understood. He wondered briefly why he couldn’t bring himself to display his fondness for you more openly, and he wondered if sometimes you were left in the dark to his sincerity. “And the roses in the front garden.”

With a burbling giggle which carried into the night air, she seized his index finger with one dainty hand. He allowed a smile the world would think impossible of him, as with his other hand he brushed her sparsely spread tresses.

Seto cocked his head, memorizing her, knowing from having raised a younger brother that the time would go by before he realized. She looked so much like him.

Entirely disarmed in her presence, he spoke. Seto didn’t need to carefully weigh his words around her, or you, and it kept him from drowning.

“Do you think I’m too harsh on her, your mother?” he asked. Her attention captivated in her father’s eyes, another mirthful giggle broke from her lips. “It’s for her own good. I want your sister to be born healthy.” It was strange, but a sixth sense had convinced him that you would give him a fourth daughter. The infant flailed with enthusiasm, his finger still captured in her hand. “And I want your mother to be alright, so she could raise you all with me.

“A long time before you came along, I almost lost her. If I lose her this time, with you here, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself...”

In this thought he kept pushing to the bowels of his consciousness, he found himself wishing you would give him a daughter who looked like you. Why he felt he needed something to remember you by when you would spend the rest of your life by his side disturbed him, so he would never acknowledge it. But you mortality was palpable, though he knew you did not understand why he grew agitated on nights you did not sleep in his embrace. It was an instinct he could not remember the origins of, perhaps it spanned lifetimes.

He felt a warmth weigh his shoulders, a soft blanket falling over himself and the infant.

“Where would I go?” Seto heard his own words whispered back to him in his ears, a pair of soft lips pressing against his cheek. “Seto I love you, where would I go?”

The wind persuaded the fallen rose and magnolia petals to rise in waves, sweeping across the balcony to your feet.

Under the porch light, the tears lining your eyes did not go unnoticed, as he found himself wondering just how much you had heard. For a girl who fell off the bed most mornings and walked into the widest door frames, your stealth while carrying a toddler was impressive.

“You fell asleep before the movie even started,” Seto said, refusing still to acknowledge his words.

“I know. The baby monitor woke me up. I managed to get her sister to sleep, but she insisted on being fed.”

“You need to stop breastfeeding her,” Seto scolded as you settled with your second daughter into the chair beside him, preparing to do exactly that. “It’s not healthy anymore.”

“The high blood pressure you give yourself isn’t healthy. I don’t need you having a stroke in your thirties.”

“And I don’t need you acting like our children in your twenties but here we are,” was his reply. The words had produced themselves harsher than he had intended.

Your silence concerned him at first, though it quickly dissolved to an endeared calmness.

“You know how we used to stay up every New Year’s Eve on the rooftop like this until morning? I wish we could do it more often, especially in the summer when the weather is nicer.” You rested your head on his shoulder as the content toddler nursed.

He grunted, considering your words, though at his own stoic response, his thoughts drifted.

“I feel because I don’t say this often, my silence causes you to misunderstand,” your husband abruptly said. “I told you this when we first married, but I’m not a very forthcoming person, it’s not in my nature.”

“I know,” you chirped. “I’m perfectly happy with the way you are. As it is, I feel like I’ve won the lottery.”

  
“No, I need you to know, my life would mean nothing without you and everything you’ve given me,” Seto said. “And I need you to promise to me, that you will spend the rest of your life with me, like this.”

“Until we are old and grey.”

“I’m serious,” he chided, not a fan of your humour.

“I know.”

By the tightening grip of his hand which had found yours, you knew, and you planned to stay right there. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think :)


	7. Balancing Act

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a transition chapter — if such a thing exists in Drabble. This is just basically catching up on the reality of their relationship up to this point. It’ll branch out into less domestic aspects of their parenting lives later on down the line. 
> 
> Also, who wants a flashback of Reader going into labour halfway through a board meeting?
> 
> Enjoy?

Summer morning, you were distantly aware of the air conditioner whirring and that still, you were sweating profusely under the sheets. You were also conscious to the fact that your husband was awake, a soft pulse as he typed on his phone travelling down to his arm pressed under you.

 

You could hear the gleeful cackles of your newborn just beyond, likely provoked by the ministrations of your twins; their tight-lipped giggles giving them away.

 

“Let your mother sleep,” Seto rebuked. “If you want to play, I’m taking you back to your room.”

 

There was a slight pause, then the giggles continued uninterrupted.

 

“I’m awake,” you mumbled to him.

 

He grunted. “It’s half four in the morning. Go back to sleep.”

 

After your conversation on the balcony, you had turned in late; around one in the morning.

 

You groaned softly. “What are they doing up? I just fed them.”

 

“Do they ever need a reason? And you want to have more.”

 

Apparently having grown bored of their youngest sister, their attention turned to you. “Mummy! Mummy! Play!” they strung together, crawling over Seto to you, or at least trying.

 

He shot up, dropping the phone on you. “No,” he said firmly, lifting both of them up into his arms. “I think I told you both to leave her alone. You’re going back to your room.”

 

“Seto let them be,” you protested, reaching for the youngest.

 

“Don’t make me the bad parent,” he shot back, cross. “You’re just now getting better and you spent the better part of the week at home alone with them and the servants. I don’t need you losing it again.”

 

Losing it again, what a euphemism for postpartum depression, you thought.

 

“For god’s sake, you’re going to make them cry!” you pleaded, tearing up yourself.

 

“Like I said, don’t make me the bad guy because of your useless sentimentality.”

 

This time you didn’t fight him, watching him leave the room.

 

…

 

“Did they cry a lot?” you asked him as he came back.

 

He took the sleeping newborn from your arms and tucked her into her crib. “They got distracted by a moth and spent all their energy chasing after it in the east wing. They already fell asleep. You need to stop coddling them or else you’ll cripple them and they won’t be able to run a company. And while we’re on the topic, stop breastfeeding them.”

 

“Oh for god’s sake they just turned one!”

 

“They’re almost two,” he corrected.

 

“Closer to one than two,” you muttered pouting, as he slipped under the covers and pulled you gently into him.

 

“The foundation of a building needs to be the firmest, or it all collapses” Seto said. “They’ve been sleeping here almost every night for one reason or the other and it’s going to become a habit. And when you can’t get enough of my attention with four kids in the bed, you’re going to —”

 

“I know what happened,” you interrupted sharply, clenching your fist against his shirt.

 

“Our children mean everything to me, but you will always be my first priority,” he told you solemnly.

 

“I’m sorry I don’t know if I can say the same,” you whispered.

 

“I didn’t expect you to.”

 

In the end, the psychiatrist’s orders had been for him to pay more attention to your mental wellbeing, and you understood it was exactly what he was doing.

 

“You spend more time with them than I do,” you said after mulling it over many times in your head. “How come you’re completely fine?”

 

“It’s because you’re young and we had children before you were emotionally mature enough to deal with them.”

 

“Do you have to be so honest about it?” you whined.

 

“Don’t ask me questions you’re not ready to hear the answers to,” he replied, pressing a kiss to your temple.

 

You returned his kiss on his cheek, and then his jaw and it soon grew in fervour as your lips trailed the side of his neck.

 

“That’s enough,” he said, prying you off. He had been gentle but firm. “You do this when you’re uncertain and nervous.”

 

“No, I just want you a lot these days,” you cooed, clambering him with less the grace of a cat and more that of a languid sloth.

 

“What happened to the girl who couldn’t even look me in the eye while asking for it when I first married you?” he teased, once again, easing you on to your pillow.

 

He was met with disgruntled protest and he sighed, turning to you. As if you would shatter at his touch his fingers splayed over your stomach, just now swelling with a conspicuous bump.

 

You let out a mirthful giggle as he seemed to concentrate very intently on the task.

 

You fell asleep like that, and woke up hours later to familiar voices, screams and giggles in the bathroom.

 

You had a board meeting later that morning, you remembered folding an arm over your eyes against the sunlight stealing past the half pulled curtains.

 

You would rather stay home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! Or if anyone is even reading this still :)


	8. Cooties, Uncles & Other Mischief I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’m too lazy to write this whole thing in one chapter so here you go. Ironic coming from the same person who can’t seem to write chapters shorter than 15000 words in my other fic though I blame Est for that. Est if you’re reading this (I know you’re not), hi!
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

“You’re not going to believe what your daughter did,” you told Seto, walking into his study with said oldest now innocently sucking her thumb in your arms.

 

“I’m sure I’ve seen it all,” your husband replied, not possessing enough interest in your discovery to lift his head away from whatever gadget he was tinkering with; screwdriver in hand.

 

“She threw all her pillows over the edge of the crib on to the floor and slung her blanky to use it as a rope. I caught her mid climb, preparing to jump on to the safety net she had made.”

 

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

 

“You know about this?” You crossed the study with renewed outrage. “Seto she’s not a cat, she could get seriously hurt!”

 

He looked up to you with a smirk. “What do you expect,” he asked, “she’s our child and a Kaiba.”

 

Unimpressed by the statement you scowled. “She’s also a toddler. One thing I really wish she wouldn’t inherit from you is your lack of any sense of self-preservation.”

 

“And what would that be referring to exactly?”

 

“You, jumping out of helicopters before they land, crashing and burning motorcycles and walking out unscathed.” Admittedly, you’ve never seen the latter in person though your brother-in-law had regaled enough stories from their past, and you’ve witnessed enough of your husband diving out of helicopters in mid-flight to piece together the picture.

 

“She has a keen problem solving ability. Don’t stunt it by coddling her,” Seto said.

 

“She’s going to grow up with no respect for authority and broken limbs!”

 

“Did you ever have any respect for authority?” he quipped in retort. As for him, it went without saying that Seto Kaiba had a very tilted definition of self-respect; everyone respected him, and he respected that.

 

You could only pout, standing before his desk. Turning, said toddler presently the subject of your contention flailed for Seto, demanding his affection.

 

Without so much of a sigh or grunt of frustration he stood, reaching for her.

 

“Are you proud of yourself?” you asked him, piqued, as he relieved you of her.

 

“Don’t listen to your mother,” he commended the toddler, “you’re only behaving like a Kaiba, it’s in your blood.”

 

“And my contribution to her gene pool is useless now?”

 

He sighed at that, pinching the bridge of his nose. “The weather is pleasant outside — ”

 

“Would you like me to go out and play with dirt since I’m being hormonal again?”

 

“I was going to say Mokuba was on his way here and ask you out for ice cream while he watches the kids.”

 

“ _Oh_.”

 

“Although,” he said chuckling, “that comment warrants a remark on your hormones. You certainly know how to hold a grudge, holding on to that comment all these years. Come here. Why are you harder to appease than our children?”

 

“You spoil me,” you cooed, slipping around his desk to cuddle up to his side.

 

“I do,” he agreed, his arm firmly around your waist as he leaned down to kiss you. Even after all these years, his voice never failed to make you swoon, butterflies erupting violently and fizzling all over. You tilted your head up in anticipation.

 

He was interrupted however, a tiny palm slapped perfectly against his parting lips, mere inches from yours. “Daddy, no, cooties,” your daughter objected, appearing scandalized by his display of affection for you.

 

“Do you not want daddy to love mummy?” you asked her, gently removing her hand. The inquiry seemed to stun the toddler. “It’s important that daddy loves mummy,” you explained to her.

 

“Why?” she squeaked.

 

“Because, that’s how we stay a family and stay in the same house.”

 

She nodded along, humming an “Ohhh,” as she did. She placed her hand on the back of your head pushing it forward towards Seto. The unexpected and rather quick motion smacked your face against his chest.

 

…

 

“I’m slightly nervous leaving them with Mokuba,” you told Seto as he drove down the driveway. “The last time he tried to bake a pizza with them and the kitchen looked like it had been hit by a cyclone and the time before that he tried to paint Suki’s toenails blue and made a flower crown for Ryu.”

 

“No one got hurt, I don’t see the problem,” Seto muttered.

 

“Ryu gashed his cheek open.”

 

“You’re exaggerating.”

 

“He almost needed stitches!”

 

“The operative word being _almost_.”

 

“You think you’re so smart,” you huffed.

 

“I am.”

 

…

 

Returning, you wondered if Seto felt that smart. Nothing could prepare you for the sight you both came home to that evening.

 

 

 


	9. Cooties, Uncles & Other Mischief II

There was a storm of soap bubbles welling at the centre of the entrance hall, it dripped from the balcony which the twin grand staircases curved up to meet, slowly encroaching the entire foyer. There were bubbles crunching under the tip of your shoe. On each staircase there was a mess of feathers, some small smaller fluff still up in a flurry; a whirlwind over the sea of bubbles. You could feel your husband’s eyes drift to the tiny jam and chocolate handprints climbing the marble steps.

 

And yet through all of this, there seemingly was no culprit.

 

You tightened your hold on Seto’s hand.

 

Then it echoed, light feet against stone far away in the distance of the mansion. It accompanied burbling giggles.

 

They grew closer and closer until from the web of bubbles emerged your younger twin. Hysterical, possessed by a fit of laughter, she broke through the suds, running straight into Seto’s legs.

 

“Dadda!” she chirped in English, hugging his knee.

 

Letting go of your hand Seto reached down for her, lifting the toddler up to his waist.

 

“Where’s your sister?” he interrogated, cross. “What’s with this mess? It’s past all of your bedtime.”

 

She pointed in some vague direction, bouncing up and down in his arms.

 

“I’m going to go find your brother,” you said, stepping out of your heeled sandals for good measure before trekking the slippery floor.

 

Into the thicket of bubbles, you don’t recall reaching very far before the world fell up. Immediately, rapid footsteps ended with you suspended in mid air. Your husband’s face, fixed into an expression of clear ire hovered above you.

 

Seto clicked his tongue, erecting you upright. “Take her upstairs and I’ll speak to my brother,” he said, walking you with a firm grip on your arm to the staircase. “Watch your step,” he cautioned, likely meaning the mounds of soft feathers piled on each step of the grand stairwell.

 

Taking the spirited twin from him you ascended the stairs while Seto stalked off through the mess of bubbles towards the South wing of the mansion in search of his brother.

 

At the main landing, the first blue carpeted passage which greeted you was strewn with dismembered English roses and fragments of shattered porcelain. The susurrus of brush bristles against dust pans as you reached the landing had made you nervous but never could you have predicted this.

 

The maids gathering the porcelain dust speckling the carpet rose and offered you bows, one after the other.

 

Suki sat wailing atop one of the many, now empty mahogany vase stands which punctuated the hallway; once housing the antique oriental vases now in pieces.

 

“Seto!” Your voice was pitched and piping. “You need to see this!” You we’re certain it reached him regardless of where he was in the mansion.

 

“Get me a pair of slippers,” you told a maid, appraising the shard lined carpet which stretched beyond your bare feet.

 

“What is it?” Seto was quick to manifest behind you.

 

He didn’t need an explanation however, nor would he receive one. His face contorted from galled to grim as he studied the passage in tatters.

 

“What in hell happened here?” he growled.

 

“Seto! Language in front of her.”

 

“She only knows if you point it out,” he retorted.

 

“Hell!” your toddler squealed, clapping and lightly bouncing in your arm.

 

“Now look what you’ve — ”

 

“I heard it too,” Seto said through gritted teeth. From memory his eyes fell to your feet. “You need to put on a pair of slippers.”

 

“I sent a maid to get me a pair. Can you pick up Suki? I don’t want her jumping off from there and cutting her little toe-beans.”

 

“Her what?” Seto grimaced, or perhaps he was already and his expression only deepened. “Those raccoons are more adept than you think.”

 

“ _Could you please pick up the fucking cat?_ ” you yelled at him in English, exaggeratedly enunciating each word.Seto stood nonplussed, your toddler stunned. “I told you that leaving my babies with Mokuba to babysit was a bad idea, I told you — I gave you examples!” you continued in Japanese, your voice never once deescalating. The maid returning with the slippers, and the group presently occupied with cleaning the corridor stood very still. One maid stood to retreat and your wrath turned briefly to her. “I don’t recall dismissing you!”

 

Seto reached for the toddler in your arms and took her from you. “You’re obviously tired.”

 

“No! No don’t — don’t talk to me like I’m some child or a head case! They could have been seriously hurt! I didn’t risk everything and put my life on hold to have them for your stupid brother to drop them on their heads. And if you’re still going to defend him and his reckless, moronic, idiocy, then I question how good of a father you are to them too!”

 

“I haven’t defended him and I will concede you were right,” Seto said, his voice low. He held the baby pressed against his chest with one hand, covering her ears. “But you need to watch your tone. Especially how you address me in front of the household staff and our children. I understand you’re tired and that you’re pregnant but — ”

 

“Oh why don’t you shove that holier-than-thou attitude up your ass Seto!” you snapped, snatching the slippers from the maid and stomping your way over to Suki, China crunching under your slippers. “You better hope you find your brother before I do,” you told him over your shoulder. “Because what I do won’t be pretty.”

 

You scooped Suki into your arms and navigated your way to where you had been intending; to find your other children.

 

…

 

In the end you never did find Mokuba, or your older twin. You found your youngest swathed in her sister’s blanket on her eldest sister’s crib in the nursery.

 

Ryu was sleeping on Seto’s pillow.

 

Having changed into something comfortable, when you returned to take your newborn back to your room, you heard a revving engine and tires speeding down the driveway. In the distance, against the silent howling of the summer wind in the night, you heard the mansion gates creaking open and then shutting closed.

 

You needed still to find your eldest, and as livid as you were with both of the bothers, you trusted Seto to apply himself to it with diligence and more sanity than you. And if Mokuba has been found and sent off, you assumed Seto had also found her.

 

Slowly you slid to the floor against the crib, and with hollow sobs which made no sound in open air though you felt against the pit of your stomach, you let out streams of silent tears until you felt you could breathe again.

 

Turning to the crib, you slipped one arm between the white railings, gently stroking your baby’s head sprinkled sparsely with hair. You muffled the defiant sobs against the back of your other palm. “I was so worried,” you told her in a whisper. “I was worried something may have happened to you. Mummy was so worried.”

 

“And you think I wasn’t?” Seto’s strident voice came pouring through the hallway. The open door allowed a slice of gold to steal into the room only basked in moonlight. “What are you doing here crying on the floor by yourself?”

 

“Are you going to yell at me?” Your lower lip quavered, warning him of a fresh batch of tears and Seto immediately softened.

 

“Why would I yell at you?” he spoke soothingly, kneeling beside you as he removed your arm caught between the two railings and wiping your stray tears with his thumb.

 

“Where are they?” you asked him.

 

“If you mean my brother, I sent him home. If you mean the twins, I left them in our room. They need a bath. And before you ask, I had a conversation with him. He understands the severity of how he handled this evening.” 

 

You held out your arms to him, the way your toddlers often did when they wanted to be held or carried. Without hesitation he obliged.

 

…

 

By Seto’s own imposition, the servants weren’t allowed to bathe the children. It had to always be either you or him until they were old enough to understand how to protect themselves better, Seto always said. He had seen enough and heard enough horrors growing up in an orphanage.

 

It was something small, but it’s how you knew he cared for them. Though by his own rules, one of you were always confined at home with the babies, because by this same logic, no maid was allowed to change their diapers.

 

Seto was kneeled by the edge of your room’s en-suite bath tub filled halfway, the twins carelessly splashing away, the sleeves of his usual navy sweater rolled up to his elbows revealing his muscle roped forearms as he struggled to keep the elder still enough to pick the feathers from her dampened hair so he could shampoo it.

 

“You don’t think we could convince Mrs. Kobayashi to come back out of retirement until the twins are old enough, do you?” you asked him sitting on the floor, cross-legged beside him, your newborn now awake and cackling nonsense on your lap.

 

Kobayashi had been the nanny who had helped Yuki with her daughter years ago and when the twins were born, Seto had called her back to the mansion. She was an elderly woman with decades of childcare experience and someone who actually measured up to Seto’s impossible standards satisfactorily. A lovely little old lady, she had helped you a great deal as a new mother. She had asked to be retired weeks before your youngest was born and trustworthy help was hard to come by no matter how much you were willing to pay. And Seto was willing to pay more than generously. In fact, to go into work more than two consecutive days a week without the other needing to stay home and watch the children, he was willing to pay anything.

 

“That woman was well into her eighties. I don’t need her dropping dead on the job.”

 

“Seto!”

 

“What? I don’t need my children traumatized,” he added unforgivingly, reaching for the bottle of shampoo.

 

“So you know I have to be running from one shoot to another all day tomorrow...”

 

“I have a meeting for the new acquisition tomorrow morning. It absolutely can’t be postponed,” Seto was quick to remind you, lathering a dollop of shampoo on the older twin, careful not to let it dribble down to her eyes.

 

She flailed her arms, splashing them against the bathwater, unleashing a great spray of water in all directions; Seto the recipient of the better part of it. Your newborn laughed as the warm droplets splattered on her and you quickly towelled her before the water grew cold.

 

Seto was still battling the excited toddler and you reached forward, rubbing your thumb carefully over his one eye, wiping away the soap bubbles which had plastered on his eyelid from the attack.

 

“Can I leave them in your office after the meeting? I’ve been away cancelling my schedules for so long.”

 

“Fine,” Seto said, wiping the back of his forearm against his eyes again as water dripped down from his fringe. “Anytime after ten.”

 

“I’ll just come to the office with all of them when you go to work and wait for you to finish.”

 

Seto grunted in acknowledgment, gently pouring water over the toddler’s foam lathered hair with his cupped palm. “Pass me the conditioner.”

 

“I wonder how long I’ll be able to keep them occupied in your office. Remind me to pack their toys.”

 

“Imagine how I will for the entire work day,” Seto countered, lightly massaging her scalp.

 

“You’re better off coming home after the meeting.”

 

“You forget I have a multi-billion dollar company to run.”

 

“Then you should have no problem wrangling two toddlers and a newborn,” you cooed to him, just as the younger half of said toddler pair lifted her toy; a hollow whale now filled whole with bathwater, and squeezed the blowhole aimed straight for Seto’s face.

 

She strung together something to the effect of _silly daddy_ or _daddy looks silly_ in English and the look on Seto’s face; his features scrunched together laminated with water, anticipating to be ambushed again the moment he opened his eyes. This here, everything in front of you, it was all so priceless.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think. Also look forward to Seto dealing with the babies at his company for a whole entire day without Reader around. Have fun!


	10. Daddy’s Office I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this got insanely long. Splitting it up into two to keep my short chapter principle. 
> 
> Enjoy :)

“No — Otō-san.”

 

“ _Daddy_.”

 

“No,” a frustrated Seto sighed. “Otō-san. I’ve heard you say it.”

 

“ _Otter_!”

 

“ _No_ ,” Seto began in English, “ _That’s not Japanese_.”

 

No longer able to keep a straight face as you pretended to be asleep beside him, the corners of your lips crinkled and you began to laugh.

 

You opened your eyes; the younger twin was sitting on Seto’s bare stomach, fiddling with the drawstrings of his pyjamas. Your husband had half pushed himself up against the headboard, as if he was undecided on fully waking up. You wondered if it was comfortable for her, all that hard muscles instead of the more insulated middle most babies get to bounce on of their fathers.

 

“You know she’s doing it on purpose because she thinks it’s funny,” you told Seto.

 

“I realize that.”

 

“Okāsan!” she chirped as you pulled yourself up to lean against your husband’s side.

 

You reached up to tame her still unbrushed silky locks. “She’s doing it to spite you.”

 

“Again,” Seto said sourly, holding on to her with both hands. “I realized.”

 

“You’re going to be spending the day at daddy’s office. You’ve been there once but you were probably too little to remember. Are you excited?”

 

She nodded her head, bouncing up and down while slapping her legs on his ribs. It sounded as if it would hurt but Seto remained unfazed, carefully holding her in place.

 

You asked after your eldest daughter and Seto advised that only the younger had found her way to your bedroom. “A maid heard her crying and brought her here. Her sister is still sleeping.”

 

You hummed. Your youngest was also still asleep, which was always something to be thankful for.

 

…

 

You woke up again to Seto reaching across the bed to shake you. “We’re going to be late.”

 

He was dressing the twins for the day. Bless him, he always woke up before you and rocked them back to sleep; it never mattered to him whether it was the dead of the night or some ungodly hour of the morning. Seto never complained. You’ve woken up to see him carrying the babies out of the room to his study to watch over them while he worked or out to the balcony hoping for the fresh air to lull them, all the while you slept.

 

And my god, did you sleep. You slept like it would go out of fashion these days.

 

He always said that it was fortunate that you had a husband so willing to care for all the babies you insisted on having. It was curious, you had never liked children in the least bit until you had seen yours.

 

Rolling over closer to the edge of the bed, you leaned over to kiss your eldest twin on her crown. She was dressed in a vibrant blue, majolica printed dress. Seto was buckling white sandals to match. If you ever let him dress any of your daughters, you would always find them dressed in one shade of blue or another. Or white, it was always blue or white.

 

Indignant that she had not received a kiss as her sister had, the younger twin, her hair now impeccably brushed fussed for your attention. Zipped into a white-eyelet dress in the same pattern as her sister, she scaled the bed sheets — still barefoot — on to your lap.

 

“You did a good job with their hair, you’re getting better at it,” you told Seto, scooping the spirited toddler on to your lap and kissing her also, while breathing in the scent of her hair.

 

“I didn’t need practice if that’s what you’re implying,” Seto replied, less than pleased.

 

“Yes you had years to experiment on my hair.”

 

“I’ve tended to your hair several times,” he quipped. “Especially when you couldn’t get out of bed.”

 

“That you have.”

 

…

 

Seto’s office was catching the sun’s glare through the glass wrapped wall. The sun’s radiance painted most of the city white. You stood at the edge of his office, your newborn clutching on to the baroque embellishments of your little black dress. The twins stood glued to the window, both hands splayed against the still cool glass.

 

“Mummy’s office is right over there,” you told them, kneeling to their height. You pointed into the obscure horizon, the tall column of your building just visibly against the sun’s brilliance.

 

“The white?” your eldest asked.

 

“No, the tall black one. I know they all look white because of the sun being so bright. It’s really far, can you see it?”

 

Both the toddlers squinted their eyes, attempting to peer into the distance as they pressed themselves close to the glass.

 

“You’re not going to see anything from that height,” Seto’s voice came from behind the doors of his personal elevator parting. Walking up behind you, he picked up both the toddlers. You rose to stand beside him. “It’s the one with all the triangles,” he told them, meaning of the triangular facets the building was constructed of.

 

You received resounding ‘Oohs,’ of understanding from both of them.

 

You watched quietly your husband as he answered more of their questions, swaying your newborn. To you, he was irresistible in just his pyjamas and dressing gown; with his hair dishevelled and a light shadow on his unshaven face but in a suit there was just no comparison. In a suit, he always commanded such authority, and now holding your children, you thought you would just dissolve into a puddle right there beside his desk.

 

“You’re staring,” Seto noted, as he fought off one twin determined to undo the knot of his tie.

 

“There are things I would like to say to you that I can’t in front of our children.”

 

He flashed a smug smirk, and even after all these years, you were all of a sudden self conscious under his gaze. “I’m sure I have a clear enough idea,” he said, looking out of the window again as he tried to control the fussing toddlers writhing this way and that in his arms like frenzied cats. “The feeling is mutual. I had similar thoughts the moment I saw you put on that dress this morning.”

 

…

 

“Aren’t those Mr. Kaiba’s kids?” an unnerved employee asked another as two incredibly bubbly toddlers bearing striking resemblance to the aforementioned president almost shocked his morning coffee out of his grip and on to his suit. Even now, his drink swirled dangerously close to the open rim. 

 

The doors to the elevator from which the two had emerged — the same they had been intending to get on closed before his colleague replied.“It’s kind of creepy how much they look like him. They look nothing like his wife. Do you think he just clones his genes in a lab?”

 

The first employee erupted with a resounding laugh, gaining the unwanted attention of the corridor. “Can’t imagine him sleeping with her can you?” he added in a quieter voice. He shook his head. “Me neither.”

 

“Shit, one of them fell.”

 

Just then the elevator dinged as it arrived on their floor. “We’re going to be late to the meeting,” the first said.

 

“I don’t think we’re going to have a meeting to go to if one of his daughters get hurt with us watching,” the second replied, rushing to the fallen toddler’s aid as she rubbed the aching knee.

 

She sat where she had fallen, with remarkable grace to her posture almost unimaginable for a child her age. She was perfectlypoised and unshaken as she tended to herself without so much of a sniffle.

 

“Creepy,” the first employee muttered, following suit. “They don’t even cry. It’s like a pair of mini-hims.”

 

…

 

The usually menacing young CEO wasn’t so today as he carried his flailing infant clad in a flowery onesie dress complete with a matching frilly bloomer — she was giggling in her father’s arms, while occasionally pulling on his tie and suit lapel. Even still, one might say that he was an unexpected guest in the department so early in the morning, though anyone who wasn’t constantly on alert for a rampaging Seto Kaiba prepared to tear a slacking employee in half with his bare hands at any time of day was...well, a moron.

 

“Have any of you seen my daughters?” Seto asked. The office before him fell silent; and as if he had suddenly won a game of whack-a-mole, all heads ducked into their cubicles. Even the employees who had been conversing at corners of their colleagues’ stations shuffled into any random cubicle that would fit them. 

 

It was unlikely the twins had wandered this far, given entry to any department required biometric guarded clearance though knowing their calibre, he would not put it past them.

 

“I don’t have the patience for any of this,” he declared to no one in particular as he stood in this seemingly vacant office. “If any of you have seen either of them, I need you to tell me immediately.”

 

In the next moment, he heard a whispered, “I’m sorry,” from one far corner of the department. It may have been followed with something to the effect of, “Your daddy is really scary,” but his hearing, as sharp as it was, would not stretch far enough to discern.

 

Then an employee stood, guiding one half of the twins by her arm. Her hair you had pulled into a mini pony-tail earlier that morning now fell free Seto noticed, lightly grazing her shoulders, though the starry headband spanning her crown was still in place.

 

“She just wanted to watch me test the video game, Mr Kaiba, sir,” the young programmer said. “I didn’t know she wasn’t allowed to be in here.” He offered Seto a deep bow.

 

By the looks of him, he appeared slightly younger that Seto. He wasn’t quite a team lead, but Seto recalled appointing him to shadow the present lead in line for a promotion. 

 

Stalking across the department, causing employees to wince with each pronounced step, Seto with one arm apprehended the tiny wrist of his elder twin. She giggled, made to twist her appendage dwarfing against her father’s much, much larger hand and run away. “I don’t think so,” Seto hissed, holding her tighter, all the while carefully maintaining his grip on his newborn. “You’re staying where I can see you. Now, where’s your sister?”

 

“She’s...adorable Mr. Kaiba,” the young man stammered. “And very keen. Intelligent far beyond her age. She understood most of what I was telling her about the game.”

 

“Of course she is,” Seto replied. “She’s my kid.”

 

Smiling nervously the employee bowed once again.

 

“Get back to work, all of you!” Seto turned on his heel; having scanned the rest of the cubicles and deciding that his third wasn’t in this department, motioned to leave. Few steps towards the door and as his employees were almost sure they could release the breaths they held, the young president ambushed the cubicle of a new programmer.

 

“I don’t recall lazing about on social media was something I paid you for!” he practically growled, releasing his daughter for only an instant to snatch the woman’s employee Id.

 

In this split second, seeing this as her new leash at freedom, the triumphant toddler darted towards the glass doors leading out of the programming department.

 

Heaving a sigh Seto pocketed the employee card, warning the young woman to expect to hear from his secretary. 

 

In the present moment however, it was more crucial to Seto that word of this mischief did not reach his wife through some imbecile posting a picture of his children on the loose unsupervised in the company building. He preferred a relatively peaceful marriage after all, and you would give him grief for months over this incident; likely, until the next baby was here.

 

His brows grew heavy at the thought; he certainly couldn’t have that.

 

He paced smugly to the door, slow in his stride, to tower over his toddler caught in a conundrum. She could not get the doors to open for her and could not back away the way she had come.

 

“Going somewhere?” Seto questioned, scooping her up into his arm. “I didn’t think so either.”

 

He levelled his eyes with the biometric scanner and the doors parted in front of him.

 

“Your mother will not hear about this, do you understand me?” Seto told his eldest daughter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reader’s outfit: https://pin.it/nef3ezxi27wk3e  
> Twins: https://pin.it/ikvinm2qgeeh4l / https://pin.it/6wwnr54d45vuxw  
> Newborn: https://pin.it/ovobs76dlgmi24
> 
> Let me know what you think!


	11. Daddy’s Office II

 

Waiting for the elevator outside the department, the toddler fussed to be put down.

 

“I’ll buy you a new dollhouse if you behave yourself for the rest of the day. That includes not running away the moment I put you down,” Seto negotiated before letting her down.

 

She had agreed, and in an unexpected turn, she obeyed. Still, Seto held on tightly to her hand. One could never be too sure, especially when the consequence was an incensed wife.

 

Surrounded by his children, perhaps his employees saw them as a buffer zone or safety shield, for they attempted to interact with them in the passing, momentarily forgetting of the pair of blue eyes contemplating murder for touching what was his.

 

…

 

Half way to his office he was informed by his intelligence and security department that his toddler had wandered in to R&D.

 

Not many occasions saw the young CEO breaking into a sprint, and less of those instances where it was him who was afraid and not an entire department of his imminent arrival. There were heavy machinery, volatile experiments and highly combustible chemicals in the research lab and his apprehension was no longer contained to your reaction.

 

However upon his arrival he discovered his eldest daughter interrogating his department head, standing only half as tall as the photocopying machine, of its functions.

 

“And...what does this do?” she asked, pointing to something he could not see from a distance.

 

“Well that multiplies the amount of copies made,” the middle aged gentleman was explaining.

 

“Mulliply.” The word seemed to bemuse the toddler.

 

“Yes, multiply. It makes more copies,” he said laughing.

 

She nodded her head in understanding, absorbing all the new information.

 

Seto strode up to his department lead, intending to thank him. Instead his daughter tottered up to him and grasped on to his pant leg. “Look daddy,” she said, “it mulliplies!”

 

Seto wasn’t sure how it was appropriate to react to such an adorable display so he reserved himself to merely nod in acknowledgment. Had it been you, you would have melted all over.

 

“She was trying to get into the lab, Mr. Kaiba, sir. I was trying to keep her occupied,” the older gentleman explained.

 

Setting down his younger twin he had ran carrying, and switching his newborn from his right arm to his left, Seto extended his hand to his employee. The man accepted it with both hands in a firm shake.

 

“I owe you a debt of gratitude,” Seto spoke with his usual, stiff mannerism he donned when politeness was required, “for concerning yourself with her wellbeing. You will be duly compensated for your troubles.”

 

“Meeting the next head of this corporation is its own reward,” the department head replied, “I could never receive anything in return. My grandson is only a little older and this is routine.”

 

Seto wouldn’t hear of it. He held a particular abhorrence for unpaid debts.

 

“The next president of this corporation. Indeed she will be,” Seto said watching over her straightening her sister’s headband, the reality of the future only just now sinking in though he insisted it to you at every opportunity.

 

“She tells me she’s the eldest. So I suppose her younger sister will be vice-president?”

 

“I believe my wife has already staked her claim for her own corporation.”

 

“Ah, of course the Kaiba family is never in shortage of companies needing to be run. Congratulations, I heard you and Mrs. Kaiba are expecting another. She must be particularly fond of children.”

 

Seto had to swallow the urge to laugh. You hated children and it was painfully obvious for anyone who observed for long enough. You loved your own, coddled and doted on them excessively even, but elsewhere your tolerance was limited.

 

“That would be...the rational conclusion.”

 

…

 

The assistant secretary came in with a brown paper bag. She observed one toddler was sitting with her legs splayed out in the middle of her boss’s office, playing with a holographic screen pouring up from a golf ball sized orb. She seemed rather content as she poked whatever on the screen repeatedly.

 

As she approached the desk she realized the other half was attempting to climb her father’s leg as he sat at his desk, trying with much desperation to read the project proposal the head of research and development had entrusted to her earlier that morning.

 

Seto did not pay any mind to the young woman standing before his desk even as she cleared her throat. He continued wrestling the toddler who was determined to climb up on to his lap on her own merits. The little Kaiba was very persistent in fighting away his help.

 

“They’re very cute, Mr. Kaiba,” the secretary said, almost cooing. He still had not looked at her.

 

The only woman Seto could only tolerate cooing was his wife. It seemed ridiculous on anyone else.

 

When he finally spared her his attention, the indignant toddler was strapped with a firm arm on to his lap.

 

“I don’t pay you to tell me what I already know,” he said. His toddler protested to this conversation, shrieking at the top of her lungs. “Behave yourself like your sisters or there will be consequences.”

 

The secretary took a step back in shock. She could only imagine what terror it must have inflicted the toddler.

 

And just as she had predicted, she began to cry. “Take me to mummy!” the eldest demanded, struggling in his grip. She thrashed her legs against his thighs. “Take me to mummy!” she repeated, dragging out the last syllable.

 

“Your mother may not hit you but I certainly will,” Seto spoke lowly to his petulant toddler, leaning over.

 

The warning was enough to petrify even the most grown adults, though not a Kaiba. Her crying grew in fervour, escalating quickly to her holding her breath until she was red in the face. To her, this wasn’t Seto Kaiba, a man of frightening influence and wealth, it was just her daddy. She regarded him with as much reverence as their cats did.

 

Seto paid this no attention. He would not dignify disobedience by acknowledging it. “Why are you here?” he asked his secretary.

 

The toddler continued to wail bloody murder.

 

“Lunch, sir. I didn’t know what your daughters liked so I shopped for a few options...Would you like some help?”

 

“What would make you think I needed help?”

 

“It must be difficult alone,” she replied, wincing at how relentless the young Kaiba was. It was evocative of the elder Kaiba himself. “Parenting is never easy, and with three kids, and alone — ”

 

“They have a mother,” Seto interjected, cross.

 

“Of course.”

 

“I’m not alone.”

 

It was obvious that in even alluding to the possibility of raising them alone had triggered a sore spot in him.

 

“Right. My apologies, sir. Would you like me to fetch the bottle of milk from the fridge?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Just as the door closed behind her, his youngest daughter woke with a start to her eldest sister’s screaming, and joined the discordant symphony.

 

“Exactly what I needed,” Seto grumbled, picking up the toddler to carry her across the room to his other child now needing consolation; at last abandoning any hope of productivity that afternoon. “Now look at what you’ve done.”

 

Halfway to the crying infant his third clung on to his pant leg. She then proceeded to throw her arms around his leg and demand her own share of attention.

 

It was such a comforting moment to remember that Seto had a fourth child on the way. How the young CEO hoped it would not be twins again. Knowing his luck, you would give him triplets.

 

…

 

At the moment he had two sniffling toddlers lined up on the couch. In one hand he held a carton of lobster mac and cheese, in his other, a spork. “If both of you behave,” said Seto, “and finish your lunch, we can leave early and I will buy you both ice cream. If either of you throw another tantrum, you’ve ruined it for your sister too. Do I make myself clear?”

 

They both nodded, though he was unconvinced on how much they had understood.

 

At the first bite, the younger twin objected, holding up her hand to block the spork. She pointed at the marbled red skin of the lobster peaking out between macaroni noodles. She spoke clasping her other hand over her mouth. “No red.”

 

“It won’t taste like anything otherwise,” Seto explained. “You like lobster. You ask your mother for it all the time.”

 

“Mommy makes different.”

 

“Mommy,” Seto said, copying the toddler’s accent with sarcasm, “doesn’t make it at all. She has the maids make it. This tastes the same. Try it.”

 

“Daddy’s lunch,” she said pointing to the box of sushi on the coffee table.

 

“Fine,” he said with a huff. “Let me feed your sister this, and you can eat that.”

 

“Me too!” her sister with added enthusiasm declared. She rocked back and forth in her seat to emphasize her point.

 

Seto set down the bowl of gourmet mac and cheese on the coffee table. He knew they would only like it until the first bite. The appeal in his lunch was in the colourful variety. “Fine.”

 

He preyed these two would eat something to sustain themselves until you were here, before his youngest abruptly ended her nap again and needed him again.

 

…

 

“It’s not formula,” Seto said to the newborn scrunching together her whole face in preparation to unleash a tantrum of the most dramatic variety, “it’s the kind you like.” He shook the lukewarm bottle. He was apprehensive of the shrill wails which were due to erupt at any moment. It’s not like she understood a word he said. “Just because it doesn’t look like it, doesn’t mean it didn’t come from the same place.”

 

You had told him you thought that pumps were artificial and unnatural. If breast milk was supposed to come in bottles, then they would, and people like him would have already packaged and capitalized on the idea. They already have, Seto had reminded you, that’s what baby formula was.

 

Exactly, you had thrown right back at his face, it just wasn’t the same thing, was it?

 

Yet at last however you had relented; Seto had used your newborn as a bargaining chip. Did you want her to suffer and starve for a whole day because of your aversion of a plastic apparatus?

 

No, but it made you feel like livestock, you had said, turning the pump this way and that, scrunching your nose just like his baby was right now.

 

As he lowered the bottle to her mouth she rejected him with the most ear-shattering scream.

 

 

“...And she thinks I’m the favourite parent,” Seto muttered, setting the milk on the table and rising to his feet to console his baby draped agains his shoulder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think!


	12. Daddy’s Office III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you thought Seto was having a hard day...
> 
> This is the end of his office series. The next chapter will be starting elsewhere.

 

From the newborn’s hysterical crying which had only escalated in intensity after he had fed her, Seto over the better part of the last hour had grown convinced he had gone deaf and now more so numb. His twin toddlers were presently colouring in the outline of a Blue Eyes White Dragon pink and orange with green glitter, and he felt nothing. Meanwhile it would seem his baby didn’t need rest and had evolved beyond the primal need to breath between screams and sobs.

 

“Shh,” he tried to coo, gently patting her swaddled back as she rested against his shoulder. He must have walked a mile around his office.

 

He couldn’t see her face but the last he had, it had been cherry red and glistening with tears.

 

“Of all the things you inherited from your mother, why was it crying?

 

“Look at all the cars down there,” he tried to say in distraction, pointing at all the cars lining up in the narrow streets floors below. He was talking to himself, the infant didn’t care for cars, birds or toys he had discovered over the last hour. “You’re going to be an older sister soon—”

 

“Mr. Kaiba,” came a hoarse voice from the door.

 

Seto turned, stewing with displeasure at the uninvited entrance. He had not heard either of the gentleman standing across the room from him, until they had announced themselves.

 

Theyoungest Kaiba continued her campaign to shatter eardrums.

 

“As you can tell this is not a good time,” Seto said, soothing the baby’s back from habit. “What do you two need?’

 

Seto didn’t like how their eyes roamed, first over his newborn then to pour over his twins. He felt as if his daughters had been touched by their filthy fingers. He cleared his throat; the eyes returned to him.

 

“It’s such a pleasure to see the future of the company right before our eyes,” the portly one said. “This won’t take long. With regards to the convention Kaiba Corp. is hosting...”

 

Grunting, Seto made to take his seat. The sudden movement as he motioned to sit having triggered the baby somehow, she first released a quiet belch, then emptied the whole quarter of the milk bottle he had managed to feed right back on to his suit jacket.

 

Seto was quite familiar with this, granted in the leisure of his own home.

 

The two board directors were nonplussed, the mere sight of Seto Kaiba being an involved father in itself was a spectacle; most accomplished business men preferred to view children as bargaining chips and expansion models for the company and saw them for perhaps the collection of a few whole minutes at the end of the day after nannies and perhaps their wives had spent hours preparing them for an audience. To see him caring for them so intimately was all the more surprising.

 

 

 

 

 

Seto’s response was still swift and uninterrupted. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said, setting his baby on his lap and slipping off his suit jacket. He folded the soiled article into itself, so as to not have it smear on everything, and tucked it into a drawer.

 

He retrieved a wet wipe from another drawer and cleaned the corner’s of her mouth. Tossing the used tissue into the garbage and holding his baby against the crook of his arm once more, Seto looked up to the men seated across from him. “Now then, you gentleman were saying?”

 

The infant was quiet for the duration of the meeting.

 

…

 

You arrived barefoot into his office, kitten heels slung from your fingertips.

 

The familiar tapping of fingers against keys rained uninterrupted over your ears the moment the elevator doors had opened. The room was littered with half coloured pages, some with official Kaiba Corp. letterheads; toys, and thrown pacifiers, but otherwise deserted of the children. 

 

“Where are they?” you asked your husband engrossed in his computer screen.

 

“Sleeping. I’m almost done.”

 

“You got them all to sleep?” you asked apprehensive of the suspicious quiet. “All three of them? You did?”

 

“If you leave them long enough they wear themselves out,” Seto said, still not looking up.

 

You collapsed with a heavy sigh on the sofa tucked to the far side of his office. “Thirty two times, I had to kiss candy breath thirty two times. If I smell artificial strawberries one more time I swear to — ”

 

“You kissed who thirty two times?” Suddenly you had all of his attention.

 

“You know Jun, tall, brooding, your age, kind of looks like you but not really.”

 

His scowl grew darker; he leaned forward on steepled fingers. “That doesn’t tell me why this Jun was sucking my wife’s face all day.” Had his voice fallen a register?

 

“Well my pregnancy is starting to show,” you said, palms circling your swelling stomach, sunken languidly into the couch. “We’re trying to wrap up shooting before it becomes too obvious even under dresses like this. So we filmed every close up and intimate scene today and that was a lot of takes. I’m tired. Take me home.”

 

“Intimate?” His eye twitched discernibly. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What?”

 

“I just thought you should know.”

 

“Know what exactly?”

 

“That there’s a bedroom scene. I’m telling you now so you don’t throw a fit when the drama airs.”

 

He seethed, your name sounded unfamiliar as he said it. “How intimate?”

 

“I was wearing clothes. You know, since I would show otherwise.”

 

“There was an otherwise?” Seto snapped, shooting to his feet. He still maintained his voice low, likely so the children in the next room wouldn’t be startled. “You’re married, we have children together, you’re pregnant with my child! Have you not played enough of these roles?”

 

“Seto I’m an actress in my twenties. We’ve talked about this. I will not give up my career to raise your children!”

 

“My children?” he barked, striding across the room to you.

 

“Do they not have a father? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

 

To you he was being unreasonable, and to him, you were being difficult and irritating. 

 

“Don’t be ridiculous I wouldn’t have given them the Kaiba name otherwise!”

 

“No you can’t exactly deny them, they look like carbon copies of you. I’m sure you would have used them at every opportunity to ask me for their legitimacy and my faithfulness otherwise!”

 

Seto stopped abruptly at the accusation. “If you have any idea what I went through for our children today — ” He heaved a sigh and looked away for a moment. From habit, his hand rose to his fringe, then at the last moment decided against dishevelling it, dropping it back to his side. “If I apologize, would you drop it? Or would you have me kneel in the dirt again?”

 

“That’s a great apology right there Seto.” You clapped exaggeratedly. “Well done, it’s such a relief that you’re mature enough for the both of us. And while we are on the subject of kneeling, all I see is carpet. I don’t see dirt, do you?”

 

“So you are asking me to.”

 

“I said nothing of the sort!”

 

“Then what does that even mean?”

 

“It means take me home!” you screamed, fishing for your breast pads and chucking them clumsily at him.They still made impact against his chest, and he managed to catch one. “It means feed me something Seto, I haven’t eaten all day because they didn’t want me to bloat anymore than I already am! It means they wanted me in a pretty nightie but I couldn’t because I kept leaking milk all over it! I was puffy, sweaty, my breasts are frozen solid and just —felt so unattractive and gross next to him all day!

 

“I have children? I’m pregnant? Yes, yes I know, my body won’t stop reminding me of it all day! At every hour of the day. My feet are killing me, I stood on high heels the whole morning at the orphanage and carried snotty, bratty toddlers while mine were drinking old milk from a plastic pump!”

 

Somewhere along the lines you had devolved to violent sobbing.

 

Seto walked to close the gap between you two, concern thick on his expression. “You — ”

 

“I’m craving chicken and waffles so bad, but when I asked for some they told me to have some self-restraint! Not only am I hungry, I’m humiliated. You know what I got for lunch? A bag of saline when I said I would pass out.”

 

The tenderness in his face had faded. “Who are they exactly?”

 

“The producers, the director, the coordination staff.”

 

This was all he needed to hear. Seto turned on his heel and stormed back to his desk and snatched the receiver. “Get me everything off the menu from the nearest — ”

 

“Chick-fil-a,” you filled in knowing he would not know the difference.

 

He repeated the name awkwardly. “And get me the chairman of Domino Broadcasting Station on the phone if he still values his job.”

 

He slammed the receiver down in the most dramatic fashion that only he could and before you could challengehis motives, he had flounced out of the office in a fury. The door met its frame harshly.

 

He returned moments later, having raided the reception fridge with an assortment of smoothies, juices and baked goods. You could only imagine the shock his sudden ambush had dealt on the poor secretaries. Setting down the refreshments he took his seat beside you.

 

“Start with a drink,” he said, voice having mellowed considerably from his phone conversation. He opened a chocolate milkshake and held it out to you. “I will see to it that there be consequences for the production staff but the consequences for you and I if you’re careless with this pregnancy could mean losing our child. Take responsibility for yourself and your decisions. Walk out if your conditions aren’t being met the way you do in the boardroom. And if you think you can’t take care of the consequences, you know I will.”

 

“I know,” you mumbled, taking a sip of the drink.

 

You leaned into Seto and he wrapped an arm around you. “I’ll go find a warm compress for your chest.”

 

“It’s fine, we can do it at home.”

 

“I promised the twins ice cream after work,” Seto said. “That might be a while.”

 

“I want ice-cream too!”

 

“...And you say they’re only like me.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	13. The Sides of Seto

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Falling terribly behind on comments but I will get to all of them!
> 
> Mary and Alma since you wanted fisticuffs so much, here you go, or at least the closest I could come up with! And Sakuchwan, thanks for inspiring a certain conversation in this chapter <3

“You should — take her — to bed,” Seto said, grunting between his push ups.

 

“She wants to watch her daddy unnecessarily show off to her mummy,” you said, reaching with one hand to the open packet of crisps set beside you on the padded gym bench. The content baby gurgled, bobbing on your crossed legs.

 

“What?”

 

“Come on Seto, when do you ever do push ups with one hand with kettlebells on your back? I watch you sometimes from the door you know.”

 

Not that you were averse to seeing your husband’s muscle roped body tense, marked with raised veins and dripping in sweat.

 

“Apparently — you don’t watch me enough.” He switched hands.

 

“How are you not tired?” You popped another potato crisp into your mouth. “No you can’t eat that, that’s mummy’s,” you told your excited baby grabbing at a chip. You wiped her little fingers of the savoury dust, kissing her hair.

 

“I sit in an office all day. Why would I be?”

 

“Did you now? That’s not what I heard.” You giggled as he stood to his feet, reaching for his towel. “Social media is a powerful beast.”

 

“You’re taking it unexpectedly well,” Seto said.

 

As he sat on the bench beside you, your infant laughed and cooed, reaching for her daddy with both hands.

 

“Daddy’s working out right now and can’t hold you because he’s sweaty,” you told her, smoothing her hair and kissing her again. “He’ll hold you after he showers.”

 

“Ah-ah,” she replied, still stretching for him.

 

Seto extended his index finger, and she wrapped both hands around it.

 

You couldn’t help but coo, kissing her hair repeatedly. “Isn’t she just so precious?”

 

Seto hummed, allowing his lip curl halfway to a smile as his eyes lifted to you.

 

“You know sometimes I remember how fortunate we are to have them all born healthy and able. And how lucky we are to be around to see them growing up.”

 

“I said something this afternoon,” Seto said, speaking your eldest’s name with certain regret. “She was being difficult and I...I told her I would hit her.”

 

“Oh Seto you would never. And...she is probably too young to understand...and it’s not always getting hit that’s traumatizing it’s the parent’ s intent and the circumstance. She loves you and would understand even if you did. So would I.”

 

“There are more civil ways to discipline a child,” he said sourly.

 

“There are.”

 

“That being said, I have no intention of raising them the way I raised Mokuba.”

 

“Which was how exactly?”

 

“I was was careless with him. He grew up to be— you’ve met him. I can’t have my children grow up that reckless.”

 

“You know somehow I’m not worried about that,” you told him.

 

“Why’s that?”

 

“Because their father is the embodiment of overachieving and taciturn and well I hate leaving the house.” You were met with an expression of blank perplexity. “You have a massive stick up your ass Seto and I wouldn’t count on that gene passing up and of them.”

 

“Go to bed,” said Seto brooding. He walked with heavy steps to the barbells for some deadlifts while he brooded some more.

 

…

 

“Are you done being a sourpuss about my joke earlier?” you asked sitting outside the shower.

 

“How long do you plan on following me around and staring at me?”

 

“I can’t see anything, the glass is all fogged up. You could always wipe down a panel and give me something to stare at.”

 

“Go. To. Bed,” Seto barked.

 

…

 

You opened your eyes at some odd hour of the night to stare blankly at the closed curtains. There was a firm warmth pressed against your back as when you had fallen asleep but that was not what had woken you up. There was something touching your stomach, moving around, and pressing against it.

 

At first you dismissed as this as the cats searching for a warm place to sleep under the covers, but more as your consciousness came to, it began less to resemble a cuddling feline and more a hand.

 

Reaching under the comforter the movement stopped, and your hand clasped over Seto’s much larger hand placed flat on your stomach.

 

“What are you doing?” you asked him, looking over your shoulder.

 

As expected of him, he didn’t answer; kissing your temple and then leaning over to press his lips against yours. You gazed up at him in awe and rapture as blue eyes came to you. You returned his kiss, quite contented by this spontaneous display of affection, and murmured again your question.

 

“I didn’t mean to wake you, go back to bed,” Seto spoke in a groggy register.

 

“You won’t feel it kicking yet you know.”

 

“I know,” Seto said, laying back down beside you. His arm under you wrapped you closer to him, while the hand on your stomach continued to idly soothe you. You received occasional kisses up and down the side of your neck until sleep came again.

 

He was not forthcoming by nature and rarely sought to clarify his affection for you with words or actions, so moments like these which were few and far between, you would save and remember.

 

 

…

 

“Mr. Kaiba, you really didn’t need to come out all the way here,” the suited man rose to his feet from his seat at the secluded bar in the dimly lit establishment. He cleared his throat from nervous habit and extended his hand. “I would have come to meet you at your office.”

 

“Yes I’m sure you’re very familiar with running for other people, given how you came to be in that position,” Seto replied, settling into the seat across; ignoring the outstretched hand though he eyed it with visible scrutiny. 

 

The gentleman much older than Seto stood still, hand fallen to his side, waiting for an invitation to sit. It wouldn’t come.

 

The bartender set an empty old fashioned glass next to Seto and filled it with a long pour of whiskey. The acidic aroma was already potent in the air, floating up from his companion’s glass. The platter of expensive fruit sat untouched.

 

The bartender disappeared into the obscurity of the far end of the bar, allowing the last patrons of the night privacy.

 

“My wife is pregnant, are you aware?” Seto asked, leaning back in his seat and swivelling the amber liquid around his glass.

 

“I don’t believe anyone in Japan much less Asia is unaware of the fact,” he replied to the arrogant corporate president half his age making a point to humiliate him. “Many congratulations.”

 

“She’s filming a drama for your station at the moment.”

 

“Yes sir,” he said, now extremely cautious. “We’re very grateful for her professionalism and commitment to her contracts. Any other actress would have broken it by now. Especially that she chooses to continue when she’s so able to — ”

 

“My wife,” Seto interrupted the chairman, taking a swallow of his drink, “never uses all the influence at her disposal because she’s frustratingly considerate to everyone around her, but you understand I’m not her. My wife is four months pregnant and asked for something to eat after six hours of filming and she was told she was too fat and given a bag of saline.”

 

The colour drained from the chairman’s face. He began to stammer a poorly strung apology.

 

Seto maintained an eerie calm. “It is within my ability to make sure that you and your family, and everyone involved in this absurdity cannot afford anything to eat for the rest of your lives. It is within my means to see to it that you’re begging for food scraps on the side of the street for the rest of your days!” Seto’s voice dropped to a poisonous whisper. “Would you like to see your wife and children doing that?”

 

“Mr. Kaiba!”

 

The next sequence of events transpired unfathomably fast; Seto took one last sip of his drink before bringing it square against the man’s head. It shattered, and dirty scarlet bloomed and dripped. The man yelled in pain, but nursed his wound for only an instant before prostrating himself on the stone floor by Seto’s feet. “Mr. Kaiba please, don’t touch my family — not my family. I will do anything you say.”

 

Seto cocked his head to look at the whimpering chairman, a smirk crossing his face though his own blood dribbled from his palm. “You have dishonoured my most valuable person, and in doing so dishonoured the Kaiba name. You will see to it that everyone I request is fired and never again works in this industry. I assume that is within your competence to understand what I mean though it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if you screw it up. But given it is the well-being of your wife and family at stake, being a father myself I imagine you will handle this with the utmost diligence.”

 

The chairman bleated, “Yes.”

 

“Quit your snivelling.” Seto stood, and as he turned, stepped decisively on the man’s fingers. “My wife will not hear of this.” He applied more pressure to his foot. “Do I make myself clear?”

 

There was a distinct crunch and in the young chairman’s wake the older suppressed his groans of pain. It robbed Seto of some satisfaction though he had accomplished what he had set out to on this excursion.

 

…

 

Seto returned home late that night.

 

A servant advised you of his arrival as you waited for him in the drawing room.

 

You confronted him in the corridor passing the garage. “What kept you?”

 

“Work.”

 

“No, I called the building and security said you left hours ago. I couldn’t trace your phone or call — oh my god — ” you picked you his right hand; palm bandaged with gauze “— Seto what happened to — what the hell were you doing?”

 

“I cut it open on a duel disk prototype.”

 

“That’s metal isn’t it? Do you have the tetanus shot up to date?”

 

“It’s fine,” Seto grunted in dismissal, removing his hand from yours. “Are the kids in bed?”

 

You hummed yes. “The twins stayed up late because you had said something about teaching them snake and ladders.”

 

“I forgot,” he said, squeezing his eyes closed in frustration. “Something for the weekend.”

 

“I’m going to be out of the country this weekend,” you told your husband. “I’m thinking of taking the twins. We can go as a family if you can bring the little one with us.”

 

“Whatever you want,” Seto said, pressing a kiss against your hairline and walking past you to the staircase.

 

You watched his receding form and knew something in his story didn’t match up, but it and been many years since you had stopped questioning his methods.

 

“Seto, do you want me to run a bath for you?” you asked running after him and snatching his hand in yours.

 

“I’m going to see if those two are sleeping first. Then I’ll take a shower.”

 

“It’s midnight, of course they’re sleeping,” you said as he led you up the stairs.

 

“I haven’t seen them all day,” Seto said. “I want to see them first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	14. The Garden & Playing With Dirt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little note, anytime I use italics, they’re speaking in English. I just thought repeatedly stating it would get redundant after the first couple.

“ _Ladybird_ ,” you said in English, pointing at the scurrying beetle on the mossy stone. “Do you know what they’re called in Japa — oh no don’t put that in your mouth!” You reached across the flowerbed your younger twin had wandered into and snatched at the foxglove flower she was trying to munch whole.

 

“Hana, _flower_!” her sister said from beside you, pointing at it.

 

“Yes darling it is,” you said, still wrestling the slobbered on flower from the other.

 

Above you the line of great oaks and maples rustled as the wind weaved, stretching out their branches out far, creating a canopy for the late afternoon sun to just filter through in a myriad of gold specks. Under it the flowerbeds lay blushing with rows of foxgloves, hollyhocks, alliums, peonies and catmints; the grassy mansion grounds continuing on in every direction. From where you sat, it all seemed endless.

 

The cats prowled around for ground mice or whatever was buzzing their radar, occasionally chasing the leashes extending from their own harnesses. Suki had created a pile of fallen flowers as offerings for your infant swinging from her suspended bouncing seat.

 

“Make sure the cats don’t get too far,” you told the maids keeping an eye out for the cats and the little ones. It was too difficult to watch over them all at ones.

 

You had stayed home for the day to pack for your weekend trip. Gone were the days where you would pack half an hour to the flight; packing for three young children required meticulous attention to detail. And you could hardly leave it with any trust to hired help. 

 

The twins had taken very well to the news that you would be home again.

 

Your younger twin attempted to venture towards the thicket of the flower bushes and landed face first in the catmints so you lifted her away and brought her to stand next to where you sat while you dusted her of loose petals sticking to her already floral dress.

 

Her older sister was more content sitting beside you, playing with dirt as Seto would call it, with her plastic spade set.

 

You all matched, sort of, with the theme of floral dresses, your youngest included. 

 

“ _Do you know what that tree is?_ ” you asked again in English from the fussing toddler in your grip, hoping to focus her on something other than venturing into the thorny rose bushes closest to the tree line. A great wind blew through the trees, emanating a rainmaker. “ _It’s an oak. They come from these little acorns_.” You picked up a fallen nut and handed it to her. She clutched with both hands. “ _And they grow to be that big, and so will you. You’ll grow up to be as big as mummy. Or even taller like daddy_.”

 

“It’s because you talk to them in English all the time that they struggle with Japanese.”

 

You turned at the voice you had not been expecting home well into the evening. He had already changed into a light cardigan and loose pants though you observed he still wore that watch you had given him many years ago. “You’re home early. _Look_ ,” you said to the toddlers, “ _daddy’s home_.”

 

Before you could finish, the twins had already rushed to their feet and raced for him. “ _Daddy_ ,” they chorused in English.

 

“See what I mean,” Seto said, kneeling for the eldest who reached him first. The second tripped over her own feet just out of reach but Seto succeeded in catching her before she met the ground. He scooped them both up and straightened to his full height.

 

“I wasn’t expecting you for a few hours. You said you had work to catch up on,” you said, standing and dusting your dress. You had started wearing your old maternity dresses again.

 

“Why do you wear white dresses to play in the dirt?” he asked as you reached him.

 

“Because most of my comfy dresses are white.”

 

He grunted in acknowledgment. “To answer your question, I came straight home after my last meeting. I brought some work home.”

 

You nodded. “I’m glad,” you said, picking a stray petal fallen on to his fringe. You suspected one of the toddlers had something to do with it’s unlikely placement. “I made orange juice, do you want some?”

 

He hummed, and you turned to one of the maids. “Bring out that pitcher I made for the twins earlier for Seto, and a few glasses.”

 

“How many should I bring madam?” the young maid asked.

 

“Four should be enough. Oh, and some cookies for these two. The rest of you can go now. Seto and I should be able to keep an eye on the kids.”

 

Seto motioned to sit on the picnic blanket beside your youngest daughter and the twins protested, simultaneously whining.

 

“ _Airplane_ ,” one of them exclaimed.

 

And the other agreed, throwing her arms up in the air, “ _Daddy do airplane_.”

 

“Your poor back,” you said to Seto without a smidge of sympathy, settling on to the blanket next to the gurgling machine that was your infant. “It’s a good thing you work out each individual arm withkettlebells on your back.”

 

“Will you ever let that go?”

 

Seto spent the next quarter of an hour lifting and spinning the twins in circles above his head.

 

The maids set the pitcher of cool, freshly squeezed orange juice on the picnic blanket, the wooden tray balancing by four glasses, macaroons and cookies.

 

“You should have asked for plastic tumblrs for these two,” Seto said, bringing them to sit. Sitting he wiped their hands he had washed with the garden hose with a serviette. “They’re going to spill it all over themselves.”

 

Suki had come around and started licking your baby’s feet. She was giggling at the sensation. As soon as this caught Seto’s notice he frowned. He couldn’t quite reach her while the twins insisted on sitting on his lap. “Why is your bag of fleas licking her feet?”

 

“She probably smells like milk.”

 

“Get that thing away from my kid,” Seto said, endearingly cross.

 

“Seto it’s fine, Suki’s clean and vaccinated. She does it all the time. It’s good for her immune system.”

 

“I can’t believe this is how you raise our children.” Growling, Seto reached with much difficulty for the kitty and as his fingertips grazed her fur, she turned and began her ministrations on his fingers. He groaned with dismay, recoiling. “That is truly vile.”

 

“You act like she’s never licked you before.”

 

“That’s besides the point. How am I supposed to do anything with this hand now?”

 

“I can spray you down with the garden hose.”

 

“Pass me a serviette!” Seto barked.

 

Your toddlers watched this exchange with amusement, nibbling on a couple of rose and blackcurrant macarons.

 

It escapedyour notice as you were too engrossed in your husband, and more so laughing at his expense, but details seldom passed by Seto unnoticed and he hoped that this would be how his children remembered their childhood, surrounded by you and him, content and peaceful.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading ^_^ let me know what you think!


	15. The Storm

It was storming outside.

 

Seto was exceptionally warm, and a weight pressed on his chest with each breath. There was reluctance to open his eyes, as most did when caught between that state between sleep and wakefulness; but he was trying to escape a nightmare, where you had left. There were two sets of breaths falling on either side of his neck; fussing and cooing also disturbed him.

 

Waking up, he stared up at the ceiling as he always did, allowing his eyes to focus on the white mouldings stretching the edges as they wandered. He grew aware of how numb his arms had become in the stiff attitude he held them under his two toddlers nestled against his neck. His newborn was beginning to stir, perched asleep on his chest.

 

And you...well you were no where to be found on the bed. The room was dark, so was the bathroom. He grew unsettled. He looked to the nightstand for your phone, tablet, anything. In their place there stood a baby bottle of old milk, half touched.

 

With careful precision untangling himself from his twins, and pressing the baby on the precipice of rousing to his chest he stood from the bed, calling your name. He felt a weak resistance on his shirt. He turned to find his younger toddler griping the edge of his shirt; rubbing her eyes. 

 

“ _Daddy don’t go_ ,” she said, groggy.

 

Her movement disturbed her older sister and now she too was awake. They both stared up at him with confusion in their big blue eyes, irritable and disoriented.

 

Seto still had received no response for his calling you and in the dark room, so still escaping the clutches of his nightmare, in his sleep deprivation began to question the reality. It unsettled him that his children had not asked for you immediately after waking up. Why did they not look for you? Where were you? Engrossed in his dream, he was desperate for a sign of your existence, any sign. It was unlike you to leave his side during a thunder storm and abandon the babies.

 

He patted his waking newborn beginning to sob as she stirred from her slumber, rocking her back and forth.

 

Violent thunder cracked outside and the twins shrieked, leaping to clutch on to him. His newborn wailed. He wrapped one arm around the toddlers, sitting back on the bed, hushing them. He kissed one of them on her crown, though he wasn’t paying attention to which. They cuddled as close as they could to him.

 

Seto called your name again with more panic this time and his eldest asked him who that was he was calling for. Not thinking in a sober fashion andfailing to understand that they identified you and him as mummy and daddy; not by name, he paused with some familiar terror.

 

Overwork and years of accumulated, severe sleep deprivation could do that to even the sanest of men.

 

He tried to stand up, explaining to his twins that he needed to go find you but they hung on to him with a stubborn persistence reminiscent of you yourself. They squeezed their eyes shut, depending on him for dear life as they pleaded and sobbed that Seto couldn’t bear to leave them alone.

 

In the end he convinced one of them to walk, and carried the other opposite his crying baby. 

 

It occurred to him halfway down the corridor that perhaps he should have just called. His phone was still on the nightstand.

 

His eldest had bunched a fistful of his pyjama pants into her fist as she walked beside him; he needed to walk carefully so as to not throw her with each stride.

 

He stopped a passing maid; she seemed petrified by the unexpected ambush. Upon being inquired after your whereabouts, she offers him a quizzical expression; she had not. By the perplexity which she delivered her answer, his agitation grew.

 

“Otō-san,” his eldest called him, pulling on his pant leg.

 

Had she ever called him by that?

 

She said nothing else, rubbing her eyes.

 

This was madness, where did he plan to look for you? It would be tomorrow if he planned on looking for you in every one of the ninety something rooms in his manor.

 

Deeply unsettled he returned with his children to the bedroom and as he settled them in, while resisting their pleas to join them, the door opened, and you walked in.

 

Save for your sickened expression, it was as if nothing had happened.

 

He found himself growing furious. “Where were you?” Seto demanded.

 

“Sorry,” you said walking up to the bed. “I was feeling really sick and I was worried I would wake up the kids with my retching and coughing. Did something happen?”

 

He softened. “Are you alright?”

 

“It’s the usual. Five months to go I guess. Please let this baby come a few days early.” Setting down your phone on the nightstand you made to slip into bed beside your twins fussing for you.

 

“That’s all the more reason for you to do whatever here. I would at least hear if something happened.”

 

“Seto, it’s fine — ”

 

“It isn’t.”

 

Gentling swaying the calmed newborn he walked around the bed, then past it to lay her in her crib.

 

“Nothing is fine,” he groused, pushing you towards the centre of the bed and slipping in beside you. “Set a pillow so they don’t fall.”

 

You did, and he pulled you tightly against him the moment you laid back down.

 

“My breath probably smells awful,” you said wriggling out of his grip, or so you could try.

 

“I don’t care. Do you have any idea — I was worried sick.”

 

His grip only tightened.

 

You would wake up the next day to his face buried in your neck, your whole form enveloped by his.

 


	16. Your Company

Seto swirled the white wine in his glass with a disinterested scowl and stole a glance at his watch. It was still early; past nine but then he had only just arrived.

 

His wedding ring did little to discourage the usual fanfare he inspired, but on the rare occasion that your place beside him was vacant, that was expected. To these women, the twenty — sometimes thirty —something socialites and celebrities, marriages were a formality. It was understandable, if they flittered their eyelashes for long enough and leaned forward far enough to display a favourable view of their décolletage, most of them would leave the party with a — married — businessman of commendable influence.

 

As it was, a particularly persistent group of young women were competing for his arm.

 

“I was expecting to see Mrs. Kaiba here,” an older gentleman Seto has had occasion to do business with said. He held a cocktail Seto could smell from a foot away. 

 

“She was feeling under the weather,” Seto said.

 

This seemed to encourage the groupies; perhaps his response had given them the wrong impression, Seto considered. A vague dismissal of the absence of their wives was what most businessmen offered when they did not wish to be inquired after them; it read that they did not want to be reminded.

 

Seto shook his arm of a woman he guessed to be your age in a scarlet dress, clawing at his forearm.

 

“How far along is she this time?” another acquaintance of his inquired.

 

“Four months,” Seto said.

 

“You must really like children,” the woman in red purred, pressing herself against his arm. Seto stepped away, but none of these women would be triumphant if they were so easily deterred. She liked the chase.

 

Seto said nothing; scowl etching deeper.

 

“How old is your oldest? They’re twins right?” she asked.

 

She was attractive by conventional standards, a small face, lips closing with a natural pout and long eyes;Seto wasn’t oblivious to her appeal as much as he was uninterested.

 

“Almost two,” he replied.

 

At the slightest display of interest on his part, they all began at once to coo about his children. The excitement erupted all around him; it seemed to always be the same as of late. They all appeared to believe that feigning superficial interest in his children was the way to win his attention.

 

You hadn’t eaten more than a few bites at dinner before retiring to bed, the head maid had relayed to him then; his brows gathered as he read the message. He messaged you, nothing of what he had heard, just asking after how you were feeling since he had last saw you.

 

You replied back with a picture holding up your infant clad in a Swiss dot onesie trimmed with pink. She was reaching for the phone with both hands, blue eyes wide, giggling by her expression, and you were kissing her hair.

 

“ _We’re both fine,_ ” it read. “ _Enjoy your party. Is it too early to try and teach her how to say daddy?_ ”

 

“What’s that you’re smiling at?” another woman interrupted in a nasally coo, leaning over his phone screen.

 

Seto snatched his phone away from her prying eyes and pocketed it in the breast pocket of his black tux. He had not realized he had been, smiling that was.

 

“I’ve never seen the great Seto Kaiba smile,” a third woman said.

 

He peeled away the sly hand of the young woman who had interrupted, wrapping around his arm and fixed the her with a chilling glare. "I don't recall giving you permission to do that," he said.

 

The small congregation around him held their breath; all except for her. She crept closer, tapping him playfully with just her index finger before slipping her arm through his again. Had she mistaken his tone as being playful or had he not delivered it with his usual edge? The answer, Seto concluded as he appraised the bunting hanging on to his arm again, was stupid.

 

With a hardened expression he pulled her in by her own grip on his forearm and turned his head away from the group as he leaned in to whisper in her ear, "By principle I will not lay a hand on a woman but my wife will have no problem making you disappear, if you don't remove this hand. And before you misunderstand, she will have my blessings."

 

The group at large could not discern what he had said, but witnessed the young woman jerk away rather violently.

 

...

 

You were surprised by the bedroom door opening without notice, though more so by Seto walking in with a take-out bag. The juxtaposition of the paper bag slung from his hand against his tailored black tux was amusing, and endearing.

 

"You're back early," you said, beaming. He had hardly been gone two hours.

 

Crossing the room to you he set the bag down on your night stand beside the table lamp and the vase of pink peonies.

 

"I heard you didn't eat. I brought the pork stew you like so much from that hole in the wall place."

 

You were too well aware of how much he disliked the humble establishment; from his rude remarks of their interior to all the derision on their hygiene, or as he felt, lack there of, you've heard it all. When you were first expecting, he wouldn't even entertain the thought of you eating there, though that had quickly changed when you had lost the ability to hold down much else.

 

"So you came home because I passed up on dinner? You didn't need to do that, you know that." you said, soothing the baby waking up to the conversation.

 

He grunted, a deep crease between his brows. Looking from you to his gurgling infant, flailing like an upturned tortoise, his expression softened. Leaning down Seto scooped her into his arms, watching over her with eyes you didn't think he'd ever had for you. You would be wrong, and oblivious, but to you, they just seemed to melt at the sight of her. She clutched onto his lapel, and reached with her other hand for his bow tie, all the while chirping and bouncing up and down with enough velocity to launch herself out of his hold.

 

"She likes you more than she likes me. Just like all of them."

 

He swayed her back and forth, easing her stubborn fingers away from his bow tie and lapel, bringing her to rest against the crook of his arm. "I don't know where you got that impression from but she enjoys screaming her lungs out when you leave her alone with me," Seto replied, still looking only at her.

 

You smiled to yourself, content beyond words each time you watched your husband genuinely enthralled by your children.

 

"You're back so early," you told him, "did you even get the chance to eat?"

 

"No, but if I was to sit down for dinner," he said, walking the baby on the brink of sleep back to her crib, "I wouldn't do it choking on cheap perfume."

 

"Cheap perfume? What?"

 

"This jacket either needs a good dry cleaner or a good furnace to be burned in."

 

"Seto what are you -- "

 

"It means I should have stayed home tonight instead of attempting to find half decent company to fraternize with."

 

"The mayor's parties usually have decent guests, what happened?"

 

"You would think," Seto began, shedding the suit jacket on to the floor and sitting beside you on the edge of the bed, "that women would have more self respect than to look for a companion in a married man."

 

Your eyebrow rose from intrigue, though also most certainly with ire. "Who was it?"

 

"You think there was only one?"

 

"They, then."

 

"As if I would care to find out names when I have more productive ways to spend my time."

 

"Like bringing me dinner?" You reached for his hand and stroked his palm gently, smiling again to yourself.

 

"Yes."

 

"You know those girls think it's okay because men let them get away with it. If they're married, the blame should stay with them, not the women," you said.

 

He passed a scathing remark on old swine inconveniencing him with their infidelity and how much the normality of it disgusted him, before walking over his discarded jacket to the bathroom. "Eat," he ordered, before disappearing.

 

…

 

“Seto I think I’m literally dying,” you groaned exaggeratedly, splayed over the comforter like a washed up starfish.

 

He looked to you from the French windows, drawing closed the curtains for the evening. “It’s not any funnier the third time you say it,” he drawled, cross.

 

“Everything hurts.

 

“I throw up everything I eat right back. It’s so gross.”

 

He walked around to your side of the bed; pushing your leg away, he made space for himself on the edge, sitting down.

 

“This is the last one,” Seto said. He looked across the bedroom to the infant gurgling to herself in her crib. “ _She_ should have been the last one.”

 

You groaned something incoherent.

 

He gently lifted your foot onto his lap, studying it.

 

“It’s swollen isn’t it?”

 

“Doesn’t look it.”

 

“I spent all day in bed and my feet still hurt. Almost six more months to goand I think I’m already losing my mind.”

 

You felt his thumbs moving under the ball of your foot, his fingers releasing the tension over your arch. “You don’t need to do that,” you told him, though this wasn’t the first time and you couldn’t dispute how euphoric it felt. His fingers were practiced by now, and waves upon waves of tingles swept your limbs, lifting the soreness. “Seto that feels amazing,” you moaned when he didn’t relent to your half hearted protest.

 

You could see a smirk curl on the edge of his lip. “Of course it does.”

 

“It’s precisely that sort of attitude that ended with us expecting our fourth baby. This is all on you. You don’t know how to keep it in your pants.”

 

His smirk widened. “That’s not the attitude you had when you were begging for me not to stop.” You shivered. He reached for your other foot. “Besides, you’re that much more attractive to me when you’re looking after our children.”

 

“I think that’s a mutual feeling,” you replied.

 

“Oh I’m aware,” Seto said smugly. His nimble fingers climbed your calf, pressing on all the pressure points which made you shiver again with overwhelming pleasure.

 

“And you exploit it — don’t you?”

 

“What kind of businessman would I be if I didn’t?”


	17. Troubling Insecurities & a Husband’s Guide to Dealing With Them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sakuchwan had a brilliant idea recently and I am working on that. Now, while this is not it, I thought I would put this out first since I had it already in the works. 
> 
> I just thought it would be interesting to see what insecurities reader would be dealing with as with any new mums/ expecting mum going through changes. It’s obviously not a comprehensive account of the trials of pregnancy and parenthood but I just wanted to capture a glimpse. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy! 
> 
> :)

Seto watched you from the edge of the bed and you glared at him, pouting childishly. “What?” you asked, a mouthful of cupcake muffling the question which you had intended to convey as a threat.

 

He thought you looked like a chipmunk, and fought to keep the spreading smile at bay.

 

You sat cross-legged on the bed, surrounded by a tray of mini-cupcakes, a pint of Hägen-Dasz and salted pretzels.

 

Seto held on to the overzealous infant attempting crawl across to your snacks. His grip still firmly on her back, he reached over to you and wiped his thumb across the edge of your lip.

 

You burst into tears as he leaned away; it was the most unexpected thing. “You think I’m fat!” you cried, half a cupcake still muffling your words.

 

The infant looked up startled and Seto himself looked to be at a loss. He was conditioned to such outbursts by now, surely, having experienced this twice over, it would be impossible for a man not to be, and yet, being used to it, and knowing the correct words which would not fan the flames were very different. The thing was, he had learned, such episodes lacked rationality and could not be talked down with sense.

 

“You won’t even deny it!” you accused him at his silence. “Because it’s true! You want to know why I’m so fat Seto? It’s because I’ve given —I keep trying to have babies for you!” You dissolved into even more tears.

 

Seto looked down at the baby who held something of a petrified expression, slowly souring, and he made to remove her from this oncoming anxiety attack but she would not have it. The moment her mummy was obscured from view she began to fuss and thrash, so he returned to the bed with her facing you, and sat beside you.

 

“I can’t wear anything I used to when we got married,” you continued.

 

“It’s not that you can’t,” Seto corrected, rocking the baby on his thigh, “it’s that you don’t keep anything around long enough to wear the same thing twice. And the last I checked, you still wear a size — ”

 

“I have so many stretch marks!”

 

“You had those when we married.”

 

“You’re — you’re — I’m hideous but you’re still you and — ”

 

“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” Seto snapped, grappling the tie of his silk robe his daughter was attempting to chew on.

 

“You know everyone thinks it. It’s why I don’t go to parties with you anymore and why women think it’s okay to hit on you and try to take you home. This marriage is as good as over.”

 

Seto grew concerned at that, though irritation rushed his thoughts. “No one is going to take me home, I’m not some potted plant they can just lift up and do as they please with. Two — no don’t put that in your mouth!” He arrested both his restless infant’s wandering hands with his own. “Two, half the places I go to without you, I come back early because it’s more than I have the patience to put up with alone. Three, you’re not fat, being a size zero is concerning to me, but by no definition of the word fat! And correct me if I’m wrong but I had believed you said I was your — your soulmate. Or was I the only one being delusional?”

 

“You’re the worst husband ever!” you yelled back. “Delusional? Why are you raising your voice at me? How dare you use that tone on me!”

 

The sobs grew more violent and as it always did, disarmed Seto completely. Setting the baby beside him on the bed he reached a hand to your face. “I’m...sorry.” He always struggled with those words. “You know that I — stop...you’re making it worse by holding your breath.”

 

“No, _you’re_ making it worse!” you cried, thrashing like your youngest.

 

The usual self-possessed CEO, as he found himself often before his wife, grew agitated. The fluency and smoothness of speech he was known for scattered, and he found himself scrambling for words.“You’re as you are — you’ve only endeared me — to you, over the years...more. The woman you’ve become to me, as my wife, and the mother of my children,I couldn’t fathom seeing you as any less — ”

 

“I didn’t ask for a speech! You think I’m ugly. I know you do!”

 

“I’ve seen you at your worst!” your husband matched your pitch. “I’ve seen you at your worst,” he repeated in a gentler tone, “and I could see you no differently.”

 

“No differently than how I looked when I was in labour?” you asked him, horrified. “Do I look that horrible to you all the time? Seto that’s — that’s awful!”

 

Seto snatched the tub of ice-cream in your hand and set it on the nightstand; and sweeping with a long stroke of his arm the other scattered snacks to his side of the bed, he seized your chin between his thumb and forefinger, leaning into you. He had practically clambered over you as his lips met yours.

 

You could feel your daughter flailing between you two, you knew your husband was careful enough to not let his weight be felt on her but still you worried.

 

“I love you,” he husked, pulling away just slightly. You were still breathing his air. “I love you and just because I don’t bring myself to say it as often as you like shouldn’t change anything. You’re the only woman I see, you’re beautiful but I certainly see more in you than outer appearances.”

 

“Seto, the baby,” you tried to say.

 

“I’m holding her, she’s fine. And she’s not sleeping in our bed tonight...

 

“Have I been working too much again?”

 

You yourself couldn’t fathom why but you devolved to tears again at his question, nodding. He hushed you, holding you to his chest.

 

“I’m here,” he said, and those words...just those two words were perhaps, all you’ve wanted to hear all night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think :)


	18. Couches & Bedrooms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go Sakuchwan! I have another idea for this prompt but maybe I’ll save it for later. 
> 
> Enjoy :)

Rereading his own annotations on the submitted project proposal Seto exited out of the application. His screen dimmed to a dark emerald.

 

The soreness on his shoulder he had grown accustomed to and for a moment, his left arm folded up in place as it held the sleeping baby, he had almost forgotten she was there. She had been crying relentlessly earlier that night and you were having trouble sleeping, so his only compromise had been to lull her as he worked.

 

It was well past midnight now. He looked at his unfinished prototype left on the coffee table at the far end of the study.

 

Either from her drooling or her tears, his shirt was wet and sticking to his shoulder, but he hesitated to move.

 

In the bedroom Seto found the twins curled against your side. He would be lying to himself if he said that it wasn’t tempting to crawl into bed beside you and also just fall asleep. Instead he laid the sleeping infant in her crib and returned to his study, intent on finishing his virtual reality prototype goggles before the weekend.

 

…

 

Seto couldn’t remember when sleep had come, but he found himself now, staring up at the chandelier of his study; the crystals unlit, with no light but the dusty morning sunlight stealing past closed curtains in the distant.

 

His head was awkwardly placed, he understood, against the backrest cushions of the study’s settee...and something else, it was heavy. There was a silent purr falling softly on his ears. He opened his eyes, holding perfectly still, to two heads of dark brown locks in disarray, pressed against his chest.

 

From habit he tried to lift his hands up to hold them but found them both tied to his sides under the weight of his toddlers. He could already feel the pins and needles.

 

When he managed to wiggle his hands free, he adjusted the sleeping twins to a more comfortable position against him and carefully lifted them up with him as he stood. Seto stiffened as they fussed in their sleep but it lasted only a moment as they clung closer to him.

 

The study door was left ajar, likely from when the twins had let themselves in, and Seto pushed the door all the way open with his foot as he maneuvered around it with two full hands.

 

On his way to the bedroom he passed several maids putting fresh roses into the vases lining the hallways, opening the many doors to ventilate the guest bedrooms of the old manor. They bowed to him as he passed, and he stopped before the last maid and asked her to follow him.

 

He needed the bedroom door at the end of the corridor, he said.

 

The young maid stayed as she was and Seto struggled not to raise his voice at her hesitation.

 

“What are you staring at?” he snarled at the maid as he stood before the twins’ bedroom. “Open the door. I didn’t ask you to follow me to — never mind. Just open the door.”

 

Seven in the morning was too early for this.

 

The hardest part of tucking his sleeping toddlers into their cribs was probably unravelling their fingers from against his shirt; even in their sleep they held a tenacious grip.

 

…

 

“Doing the walk of shame again, Seto?”

 

Had he not been Seto Kaiba, he would have flinched; clicking the bedroom door behind him with the utmost caution. He had been hoping you would be sleeping.

 

“Most men come in at this time of the morning after passing out somewhere drunk. You never change. Don’t bother speaking to me for a while.”

 

You turned with a huff which warned him to keep his distance and Seto stood nonplussed by the door.

 

“What?” he asked.

 

“If I wanted to sleep alone in a bed every night I would have stayed single,” you said over your shoulder. “Actually, had I stayed single, I would probably have had better chance of sleeping next to some guy I brought home. What’s so great about having a husband? All they’re good for is knocking you up and working until odd hours of the morning.”

 

Seto pinched the bridge of his nose. “I worked until late so I could spend the weekend with you.”

 

“Right.”

 

As he walked to stand beside the bed you turned, tearing the covers half way down and sitting up. “Oh no,” you said, “you don’t need to come to bed now. I’m comfortable as I am. Go find a guest bedroom to sleep in.”

 

“Don’t do this,” Seto groaned your name.

 

“Do what?”

 

Seto didn’t have a reasonable response for that, one which wouldn’t involve him getting screamed at very early in the morning. Though that outcome seemed almost inevitable. So he instead apologized, tentatively inching on to sit beside you on the edge of the bed.

 

“You can’t apologize for something you know you’ll do again,” was your response.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

You laughed at that. “Get out, and close the door behind you.” You pushed at his back with your foot. Seto sat where he was, unmoved.

 

He watched you with a light scowl gracing his features. “Did you have a nightmare?” he finally asked.

 

He watched the frustration in your eyes fall along with them to your lap. “I tried sleeping beside you on the couch but my back hurt. And she — ” you nodded with your head at the infant sleeping in her crib “— kept fussing for you when you couldn’t hold her so I had to bring her back.

 

“I feel like I’m losing you between all the kids and your work.” You picked at the corner of the comforter, not looking at him.

 

“So what made you think asking me to sleep on the couch was the way to fix that?” Seto asked, grappling your hand away from where it was fiddling with the blanket.

 

You wouldn’t say anything and he took this as a sign of having disarmed you, so he shifted closer.

 

“I’m here now,” he said, pulling you into his embrace.

 

“You’re the absolute worst.”

 

“I know,” Seto said.

 

“You are, you — you suck.”

 

Seto hummed.

 

“You’re an awful husband.”

 

The insults continued. Seto eased both himself and you under the comforter as he listened.

 

“Who cares if you’re rich and people are scared of you? I’m not. I think you suck.”

 

He said nothing as he listened, stroking your hair. Though eventually they stopped, and he felt your breathing even.

 

Seto could only hope you would wake up in a better mood, grateful that his children were only half as difficult.

 

 


	19. Midnight Ramblings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This doesn’t follow any particular prompt. It was basically random moment’s Drabble idea that I followed without much direction. Haven’t had the time to be very productive in the writing department so, I hope this at least is something until the engines kick off in the main fics again :)

“I put the girls to bed. Are you tired?” your husband’s voice poured into your ear from behind. You felt his arm snake your waist ever so carefully.

 

Knowing the intentions behind the question you hummed, maybe grunted. You had just cocooned yourself into a comfortable enough position under the comforter. It was difficult to ever be comfortable in any position as of late.

 

“I see,” Seto said. It was evenly spoken though you knew him well enough to hear the undertone of disappointment. He pulled the comforter up higher over your shoulder. “Then get some sleep.”

 

“Sorry,” you mumbled.

 

“I don’t know what you’re apologizing for...Are you in pain?”

 

Again you hummed.

 

“Where?”

 

“Doesn’t matter, it’ll go away. It usually does.”

 

“Tell me.”

 

“My lower back...and my ankles.” — Or so he pieced together from your jumbled murmuring.

 

His palms lowered to your hip, and his thumbs pressed against the small of your back. “Here?”

 

“You really don’t need to.”

 

He took that as an yes. “Try to get some sleep.”

 

…

 

You woke up again while the room was still dark; it was still night outside. You sense he was awake by fingers moving in your hair.

 

Perching yourself up on his shoulder, you pressed your lips firmly against his cheek. The first of several. His eyes broke away from their stare on the high ceiling and poured over you. You kissed him again, and again, the affectionate pecks lasting longer and longer each time.

 

You left butterfly kisses down to his jaw bone.

 

“What are you doing?” Seto finally asked, turning to you.

 

“Kissing the love of my life.” You paused in thought for a moment; he watched you with a certain fascination glinting in his eye. “Do you realize how lucky I am to be able to honestly say that? To say that I married my soulmate?”

 

“You’re cloying,” Seto drawled. He pulled you into him, burying your face in his chest. “Does it...make you that happy? Being married to me?”

 

You hummed, snuggling closer to him. “So so much. I still get butterflies when you come to me.”

 

The declaration made Seto feel heavy with some emotion, though he said nothing to express it. He took a long whiff of your hair. You smelled like home.

 

It had been a particularly trying day, even for a man like him, and it had taken every last ounce of willpower in him to come up to the bedroom to find you, instead of losing himself to a bottle of whiskey in a library somewhere. You wouldn’t have liked that, he had told himself, and maybe even the smell wouldn’t be good for the baby. His daughters also cried when he smelled like alcohol. 

 

You fussed under his arm and turned away from him, calling him away from that faraway place he had whisked himself off to. He turned with you, holding on to you from behind.

 

“You know I was thinking,” you told him, staring off into the distance, past the large windows with the curtains still drawn open, “we should start getting the nursery ready for the baby.”

 

“What’s the point, she’ll just end up sleeping here with us like her.” You could feel him motion over his shoulder towards the sleeping baby in the crib over his shoulder. “Besides, we don’t know what gender it’s going to be.”

 

You laughed lightly. “Funny you say that but you’re already saying _her_.”

 

“When did I?”

 

“Just now, you said she’ll end up sleeping here with us... Do you wish I gave you any sons?”

 

He seemed to pause to think about it for a little while. He hummed deeply. “Not particularly. I’m perfectly content with what you’ve given me.”

 

“Still...it would have been cute to have a mini-Seto running around here,” you said, pouting.“And maybe dress him in a tiny yukata and have you match him.”

 

“I would much rather have a daughter who takes after you. At least one.”

 

You could feel his warm palm gently circling your stomach; perhaps it was absent habit, you couldn’t be sure. You rested your own hand over his much larger one, weighing it against yourself.

 

“Do you hear that? Daddy wants you to look like me. Do you think you could do that for us?”

 

You could feel Seto’s chuckle break warm breath against the back of your neck. “That’s not how that works, I hope you realize that.”

 

“I’m pregnant, not stupid.”

 

He kissed you on the top of your head, and pulled you closer to him. “As if I would ever have chosen someone stupid to become the mother of my children.”

 

“But you always remind me that you’re smarter than me.”

 

“It was one time, and I was trying to win an argument,” Seto said with a groan.

 

“I’ll have you know I always ranked at the top of my grade, and probably the school.”

 

Seto chortled. “And of course I considered that before marrying you.”

 

“You sure know how to tick off all the boxes...and me.” He hoped that was the hormones talking. “This is all your fault.”

 

“What is?” he asked.

 

“I’m always pregnant because of you.”

 

That was definitely the hormones talking, he concluded. It didn’t help that in a state like this, you amused him the most.

 

“Are you laughing at me?”

 

“Why reason would I possibly have to laugh at you?” Seto asked, biting back a chuckle.

 


	20. Business Trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This prompt was inspired by oathscharm! I hope I did your idea justice!
> 
> Edit: sick as a dog at the moment. Bear with me while I get to all the comments.

Saturday mornings were louder than this; right now in the bedroom you could hear a pin drop. Though perhaps that had to do with the fact that Seto has been away for a week, his longest business trip alone since any of the girls were born. For the first few nights your oldest daughters had been convinced that their daddy had left them, even when Seto still found time to read to them over video call when it was bedtime here in Japan.

 

When he had come back late last night, the twins had waited for him, dozing off on the bottom steps of the grand staircase facing the front foyer, and having clung on to him, was yet to release him — with the exception of course when you had torn them away while he showered. They had screamed bloody murder waiting outside the door, clawing at it. 

 

Seto had eaten dinner with them on his lap, the two usually fussy eaters occasionally asking for a bite.

 

Now they were huddled to his side, all three of them bundled together, one after another against his chest. Walking around the bed, you saw that his eyes were closed, one arm slung protectively over all of them, his palm resting on the now awake infant.

 

She was looking up at you with big blue eyes sparkling, defiantly flailing against her father’s hand. A rare smile was playing on her face. She looked so much like your husband.

 

“Shh,” you cooed her, stroking back her sparse hair. “Don’t wake up daddy, he may not say it, but he’s really tired.”

 

She gurgled, singing a string of oohs and aahs.

 

“I’m not tired,” came Seto’s voice. You couldn’t tell if his eyes were open under his cascading russet fringe.He didn’t move a muscle, worried the slightest movement would rouse the toddlers demanding all of his attention.

 

You reached across the bed to sift through his hair. “You know,” you said, “you’re allowed to be tired.”

 

He finally lifted his eyes so you could see vibrant indicolite. You smiled.

 

“Do I look like an old man to you already?” His tone was groggy.

 

“I didn’t say that, did I?” you asked him gently.

 

“You’re still so young,” Seto said. “The more I see you, it feels like only I’m aging.”

 

It was rare, these conversations, it was rare that he allowed himself to be forthcoming. You wanted to say vulnerable, but the word never seemed to agree with the man. Even having seen him at his worst, to you, your husband was invincible. Especially when it was hard, you allowed yourself to believe that.

 

“You look just like the day I met you.” It was the truth.

 

“Lies,” Seto said, lowering his gaze to look over his children.

 

“...But it’s the truth,” you said following his gaze.

 

 

“I don’t say this enough, I realize. That you’re beautiful,” Seto said.

 

Your eyes darted to his face. “Did something happen?”

 

“Nothing’s happened.”

 

“You’re worrying me.”

 

“...Am I not allowed to— never mind. I won’t be travelling anymore until the baby is here.”

 

“Oh Seto you don’t have to do that for me.”

 

“The baby isn’t just yours,” he said.

 

“Seto you know — ”

 

“I bought that watch you asked for from Geneva, the one with turning diamonds on the dial.”

 

“I didn’t ask for that. How did you know?”

 

“It may have come up in conversation,” he said nonchalantly.

 

“As for what she wanted,” Seto called your eldest daughter’s name, “I started a trust fund for both of them.”

 

You smiled remembering what your eldest had wanted Seto to bring back for her from Europe. It was one word; money.

 

“She’ll still ask you for actual money when she wakes up.”

 

“In my purse,” Seto said, “there’s a collection of European currency.”

 

“That’ll keep her going for a while, or she’ll stuff it in her piggy bank. You know Seto, she’ll do your company well someday.” You motioned towards your second daughter. “And what she asked for?”

 

“She asked for you,” Seto replied flatly.

 

“No —the other thing.”

 

“I picked up a bear and a rabbit plush from Harrods. It’s in my suitcase.”

 

“Oh Seto...she asked for a Tatty Teddy and a Piglet. You brought back a Paddington Bear and a Peter Rabbit. And piglet is a pig not a rabbit. You’ve even read the book for them, the one where Pooh gets stuck in a log.”

 

Seto in turn offered you a blank stare. “They’re toys. What does it matter? Speaking of books, since you’ve already been through my suitcase, you must have found — ”

 

“The Great Women Who Made History book?” He offered a hum. “You want to read that to them at bedtime?”

 

“It’s a better alternative to stories about princesses who can’t help themselves being swept off their feet. You may no think it’s — ”

 

“No I think its amazing. I read a couple of pages last night.” You placed a hand over your stomach, looking at how it swelled conspicuously against the silk nightie. “You’re amazing to all of them...do you know that?”

 

“Anyway, how good do you think you’d be at slipping away without waking them? I made breakfast.”

 

“ _You_ made breakfast?” Seto sought to confirm. There was an eagerness to his tone thought it was soon clouded over by deep contemplation. “Can you...?” His eyes drifted to rest over your stomach.

 

“My husband just came back after eating away from home for over a week. Of course I have to make him a home cooked meal. Even if it’s nothing elaborate.”

 

“You made dinner last night already. I would consider seven side dishes elaborate, especially in your condition”

 

“I know. I just wanted to be good to you...you’ve just been gone so long.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Seto said solemnly. “I think those should have been my words to you.”

 

“You’ve been nothing but good to me all these years.”

 

“I suppose then I’ve accomplished one thing worth remembering in my life.”

 

You didn’t understand, this was a man who had accomplished more than most others could ever dream of achieving in ten lifetimes, outside the marriage.

 

And yet to Seto, all the memories worth keeping had been with you, and the children you’ve given him.


	21. Godfather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was inspired by the fact that Seto and Reader’s children aren’t old enough to go to school and cause trouble. 
> 
> Not really sure if anyone even reads this, but I thought it deserved an update anyway.

Seto had stopped drinking coffee in the mornings. It wasn’t choice; as much as having a healthy tooth ripped out of your mouth wasn’t a choice. But you had grown a particular disgust for its smell, and you had said you couldn’t stand to smell it on his breath. If you smelt the scent of the sludge wafting over, you would turn out everything in your stomach.

 

He never said a word about it, but he was clearly having withdrawals. Like now, where it seemed as if his eyes were losing focus, as he held on to the steering wheel with one hand.

 

“Your body will thank you,” you told Seto. “What you have is an addiction. Drink some extra water and it’ll wear off.”

 

His eyes twitched. “Yes,” your husband said, “I’m sure I can find suitable substitutes for rice, soup, coffee and every type of alcohol.”

 

“That’s the spirit.”

 

“This,” he over enunciated, “is the last one.”

 

“As I recall,” you said flippantly, in no particular hurry to get through the magazine you were flipping through, “you were the one who was especially fond of children.” You stabbed the magazine page you had landed on with your index, as if to make your point, the two page spread a landscape of your husband sitting on a settee holding on to your three children, the caption reading something to the effect of how the notoriously dispassionate chairman had settled down, possessing a particular patience and affection for his children.

 

“You know better than to believe the garbage tabloids write,” he groused.

 

“Are you saying that you don’t love our children or that Vogue Japan is a tabloid?” Drawing together his brows as he focused on the road, you interrupted him as he made to speak. “Answer That carefully Seto, I posed for the cover of this.”

 

He released something which resembled a low growling.

 

“I said answer carefully, not stay silent — ”

 

“Your phone’s ringing,” Seto noted, ignoring your quip.

 

“Obviously,” you said, rummaging your purse.

 

You answered to be greeted with a grating old voice asking you were the guardian to a Miss. Fukuhara. The moment you heard your own name followed by that last name, you knew exactly who it was they were referring to, but either out of fear for what could have happened, or your brain lapsing from hormones, you hesitated.

 

“Is this not her?” the older gentleman asked, speaking your name slowly. At your silence, he apologized. In the background, you heard him say that it certainly wasn’t surprising to him after what has happened, that the emergency contact was another lie. After all, yours wasn’t a common name.

 

It wasn’t a lie, Yuki’s daughter could be heard screaming in response, right before the line disconnected.

 

You dialled the number again in a panic, asking Seto to make a turn for Domino Elementary School.

 

“Whatever this is about, I don’t have time for it,” Seto said, though glancing again over the concern on your face, he obliged.

 

You were connected to the same old voice, and you introduced yourself. “I’m her godmother,” you told him. “Is she alright?”

 

…

 

The corridors were empty of students and teachers at this time of the morning, and old sunlight filtered in dusty columns through grilled windows, pouring over pastel hued lockers and walls. The way to the principal’s office Seto navigated from memory from when his brother had attended years ago.

 

You all but barged in to the office, with only a quick question thrown at the frazzled secretary on whether she was in there.

 

She was.

 

Behind the grand oak desk was a gentleman greying all over in a brown linen suit. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, berating the little girl standing all alone, as she was faced by a stout middle aged lady all but suffocating a little boy in her bosom. Hers was a cold reception, stuck somewhere between wanting to glare at you, mild surprise and not quite possessing the courage to match eyes with you.

 

At your entrance, Yuki’s daughter leapt to wrap herself around your legs, clinging on to your skirt.

 

The principal paused. “You’re here...you see, following this morning’s incident, we had reason to believe it was another lie. She seemed to be named after you too, and sometimes mothers go along with children to encourage their imagination...so to speak so we assumed — ”

 

“So you assumed Yuki signed the emergency contact form with my name on it to entertain her daughter’s whimsy?” you asked. You stroked her hair. “Why exactly is she here?”

 

“There was a disagreement in class, and your goddaughter hit a classmate with her tablet over his head,” the headmaster explained.

 

Seto entered just then, and if it hadn’t been before, the room held its breath.

 

“Why would you do such a thing?” you asked little Yuki, as you liked to call her.

 

“He made fun of me for not having a father,” she said, still clutching your skirt, grounding her heel into the ground. Your eyes shot up to glare daggers at the shrinking headmaster. “And I — I told him, that my godfather was Seto Kaiba, who was like the best duelist ever, so it didn’t matter who his useless father was.”

 

You glanced over your shoulder at Seto. By definition, he wasn’t her godfather, but little Yuki always called him that, and Seto never disputed her.

 

“So you hit him?” you asked her.

 

“He called me a liar...and said...said that it didn’t matter, because Yugi Mouto was the best duelist ever.”

 

The first reaction unexpectedly, was Seto’s throaty chuckle. It didn’t even appear as if he had tried to restrain himself. Reaching into his the breast pocket of his suit jacket, Seto extended a card to the indignant mother of the boy little Yuki had swung at.

 

“Call my legal team if you have an issue,” Seto said. “The way I see it, your son instigated the attack. And as your son so diligently pointed out, my goddaughter doesn’t have a father, but my wife and I have one hell ofa legal team if you wish to press charges.”

 

Grabbing your hand in his, he threw the door behind him open. “We are done here,” Seto said.

 

…

 

Returning to his office from the meeting you had made him nearly late to, he slapped an unboxed KC smartphone on to his desk. Little Yuki sat opposite, her legs swinging along the edge, holding on with both hands to a popsicle.

 

“Next time you have an issue,” Seto told her. “You call me directly. Do you understand?”

 

Distracting for a moment from her ice lolly, she looked up to him with big eyes.

 

“ _Don’t_ _reward_ _bad_ _behaviour,_ ” you hissed at your husband in English. “Besides, if Yuki wanted her to have a phone, she would have bought her a phone.”

 

“I’m rewarding good behaviour,” your husband said with a smug smile, beginning to teach the eager little girl how to speed dial for him.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, little Yuki was the girl that Yuki back from OBIB names after reader, for anyone who is confused.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think :)


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